UC-NRLF 


Single  Blessedness 

and 

Other  Observations 
By  George  Ade 


Books  by  George  Ade 


ADE'S  FABLES 

BREAKING  INTO  SOCIETY 

CIRCUS  DAY 

Doc'  HORNE 

FABLES  IN  SLANG 

FORTY  MODERN  FABLES 

HAND-MADE  FABLES 

IN  BABEL 

IN  PASTURES  NEW 

KNOCKING  THE  NEIGHBORS 

STORIES  OF  STREETS  AND  TOWN 

MODERN  FABLES  IN  SLANG 

MORE  FABLES 

PEOPLE  You  KNOW 

SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS  AND  OTHER 

OBSERVATIONS 
THE  GIRL  PROPOSITION 
PINK  MARSH 
THE  SLIM  PRINCESS 
THE  SULTAN  OF  SULU 
TRUE  BILLS  (Fables) 


SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

AND  OTHER  OBSERVATIONS 


BY 
GEORGE    ADE 


GARDEN    CITY  NEWYORK 

DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE    &   COMPANY 
1922 


COPYRIGHT,    1922,    BY 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED,    INCLUDING    THAT    OF    TRANSLATION 
INTO    FOREIGN    LANGUAGES,    INCLUDING    THE    SCANDINAVIAN 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

AT 
3UNTRY  LIFE  PRESS,  GARDEN   CITY,  N.  Y. 


First  Edition 


a  -• 


In  this  book  you  will  find,  possibly  disguised 
and  altered,  certain  dissertations  which  first 
found  their  way  to  the  public  through  the  col 
umns  of  The  American  Magazine,  The  Cosmo 
politan  Magazine,  The  Saturday  Evening  Post, 
The  Century  Magazine  and  Life.  Also  there  is 
some  miscellany,  first  exhibited  in  private  and 
now  put  into  type  for  the  first  time. 

GEORGE  ADE 
1922 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS       ...  i 

COLLEGE  STUDENTS 23 

THE  TORTURES  OF  TOURING 26 

DIGNITY 42 

LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY 45 

DANCING 60 

MUSICAL  COMEDY 63 

ARRANGERS 69 

VACATIONS 73 

BABIES 76 

TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP 79 

PUTTING  UP  A  FRONT 96 

HOME-COOKING 99 

BROADWAY 102 

ADIPOSE 118 

LETTERS  OF  INTRODUCTION 121 

AWAY  FROM  HOME 125 

ORATORY 145 


viii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

GOLF 148 

NON-ESSENTIALS 169 

INDIANA 172 

COMPARISONS 178 

SERVANTS 182 

THE  OLD-TIME  RALLY 185 

OVERLORDS 196 

Music 199 

MARK  TWAIN — EMISSARY 203 

WHIRLIGIGS 211 

ADVICE 214 

CHRISTMAS  IN  LONDON 217 

LUXURIES  .  222 


SINGLE    BLESSEDNESS 
AND   OTHER   OBSERVATIONS 


SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

AND  OTHER  OBSERVATIONS 

THE  JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

THE  bachelor  is  held  up  to  contempt  be 
cause  he  has  evaded  the  draft.  He  is  a 
slacker.  He  has  side-stepped  a  plain 
duty.  If  he  lives  in  the  small  town  he  is  fifty 
per  cent,  joke  and  fifty  per  cent,  object  of  pity. 
If  he  lives  in  a  city,  he  can  hide  away  with 
others  of  his  kind,  and  find  courage  in  numbers; 
but  even  in  the  crowded  metropolis  he  has  the 
hunted  look  of  one  who  knows  that  the  world 
knows  something  about  him.  He  is  led  to  be 
lieve  that  babies  mistrust  him.  Young  wives 
begin  to  warn  their  husbands  when  his  name  is 
mentioned.  He  is  a  chicken  hawk  in  a  world 
that  was  intended  for  turtle  doves.  It  is  always 
taken  for  granted  that  the  bachelor  could  have 
married.  Of  course,  he  might  not  have  netted 
the  one  he  wanted  first  off.  It  is  possible  that, 


2  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

later  on,  circumstances  denied  him  the  privilege 
of  selection.  But  it  is  always  assumed  by  critics 
of  the  selfish  tribe,  that  any  bachelor  who  has 
enough  money  in  the  bank  to  furnish  a  home, 
can,  if  he  is  persistent,  hound  some  woman  into 
taking  a  chance. 

Undoubtedly  the  critics  are  right.  When  we 
review  the  vast  army  of  variegated  males  who 
have  achieved  matrimony,  it  seems  useless  to 
deny  that  the  trick  can  be  turned  by  any  man 
who  is  physically  capable  of  standing  up  in  front 
of  a  preacher  or  whose  mental  equipment  ena 
bles  him  to  decide  that  he  should  go  into  the 
house  when  it  rains. 

If  Brigham  Young,  wearing  throat  whiskers, 
could  assemble  between  thirty-five  and  forty  at 
one  time,  how  pitiful  becomes  the  alibi  of  the 
modern  maverick  that  he  never  has  managed  to 
arrive  at  any  sort  of  arrangement  with  a  solitary 
one! 

We  know  that  women  will  accept  men  who 
wear  arctic  overshoes.  Statistics  prove  that 
ninety-eight  per  cent,  of  all  those  you  see  on  sta 
tion  platforms,  wearing  "elastics"  on  their 
shirt-sleeves,  have  wives  at  home. 

The  whole  defense  of  bachelorhood  falls  to 
the  ground  when  confronted  by  the  evidence 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS      3 

which  any  one  may  accumulate  while  walking 
through  a  residence  district.  He  will  see  dozens 
of  porch-broken  husbands  who  never  would 
have  progressed  to  the  married  state  if  all  the 
necessary  processes  had  not  been  elementary  to 
begin  with,  and  further  simplified  by  custom. 

Even  after  he  is  convinced,  he  will  stubbornly 
contend  as  follows:  "Possibly  I  am  a  coward, 
but  I  refuse  to  admit  that  all  these  other  birds 
are  heroes." 

At  least,  he  will  be  ready  to  confess  that  any 
one  can  get  married  at  any  time,  provided  the 
party  of  the  second  part  is  no  more  fastidious 
and  choosey  than  he  is. 

These  facts  being  generally  accepted,  the  pre 
sumption  of  guilt  attaches  to  every  single  man 
beyond  the  age  of  thirty.  And  if,  as  the  years 
ripen,  he  garners  many  dollars,  and  keeps  them 
in  a  hiding  place  which  is  woman-proof,  he 
slowly  slumps  in  public  esteem  until  he  becomes 
classified  with  those  granite-faced  criminals  who 
loot  orphan  asylums  or  steal  candlesticks  from 
an  altar. 

Finally  he  arrives  at  a  state  of  ostracized  iso 
lation.  He  has  every  inducement  to  be  utterly 
miserable,  and  probably  would  be  so,  except  for 
frequent  conversations  with  married  men. 


4  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

At  this  point  we  get  very  near  to  the  weakest 
point  in  the  general  indictment  against  bach 
elors:  Is  it  generally  known  that  bachelors  pri 
vately  receive  encouragement  and  approbation 
from  married  men? 

Not  from  all  married  men,  it  is  true.  Not, 
for  instance,  from  the  husband  of  any  woman 
who  happens  to  read  these  lines.  But  they  do 
receive  assurances  from  married  men,  of  the 
more  undeserving  varieties,  that  matrimony  is 
not  always  a  long  promenade  through  a  rose 
bower  drenched  with  sunshine.  The  word 
"lucky"  is  frequently  applied  to  single  men  by 
the  associate  poker  players  who  are  happily 
married. 

The  difficulty  in  rescuing  the  hardened  cases 
of  bachelorhood  is  that  the  unregenerate  are  all 
the  time  receiving  private  signals  from  those 
supposed  to  be  saved,  to  lay  off  and  beat  it,  and 
escape  while  the  escaping  is  good.  Many  of 
them  would  have  fallen  long  ago  except  for 
these  warnings. 

There  are  times  when  the  most  confirmed, 
cynical,  and  self-centred  celibate,  influenced  by 
untoward  circumstances  and  unfavourable  atmo 
spheric  conditions,  believes  that  he  could  be  rap 
turously  content  as  a  married  man,  and  that  he 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS       5 

is  cheating  some  good  woman  out  of  her  des 
tiny.  Conversely,  the  Darby  who  wants  the 
world  to  know  that  his  Joan  is  a  jewel  and  his 
children  are  intellectual  prodigies  and  perfect 
physical  specimens — even  this  paragon,  who 
would  shudder  at  mention  of  a  divorce  court, 
tells  his  most  masonic  friends  that  it  must  be 
great  to  have  your  freedom  and  to  do  as  you 
darn  please. 

No  matter  which  fork  of  the  road  you  take, 
you  will  wonder,  later  on,  if  the  scenery  on  the 
other  route  isn't  more  attractive. 

The  bachelor,  being  merely  a  representative 
unit  of  weak  mankind,  isn't  essentially  different 
from  the  Benedict.  Probably  at  some  time  or 
other  he  wanted  to  get  married  and  couldn't. 
Whereas,  the  married  one  didn't  want  to  get 
married  and  was  mesmerized  into  it  by  a  com 
bination  of  full  moon,  guitar  music,  and  roly- 
boly  eyes. 

A  poor  wretch  who  had  lived  under  the  stigma 
of  bachelorhood  for  years  once  confided  to  sev 
eral  of  us  that  he  was  all  ready  to  be  married  at 
Columbus,  Ohio,  in  1892,  and  then  learned  that 
it  would  cost  at  least  eight  dollars  to  put  the 
thing  over. 

Bachelors  are  willing  to  be  segregated  or  even 


6  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

separately  taxed,  but  they  don't  wish  to  be 
branded  with  too  hot  an  iron.  They  come  to 
regard  themselves  as  potential  married  men  who 
never  received  notice  of  their  inheritances. 
Married  men  are  merely  bachelors  who  weak 
ened  under  the  strain.  Every  time  a  bachelor 
sees  a  man  with  an  alpaca  coat  pushing  a  per 
ambulator,  he  says,  "There,  but  for  the  grace  of 
God,  goes  me!" 

Whatever  excuses  the  bachelor  may  secrete 
in  his  own  mind,  the  following  definite  counts 
have  been  drawn  against  him : 

1st.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  good  man  to  be 
come  the  founder  of  a  home,  because  the  home 
(and  not  the  stag  boarding-house)  is  the  corner 
stone  of  an  orderly  civilization. 

2d.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  high-minded  citi 
zen  to  approve  publicly  the  sacrament  of  mar 
riage,  because  legalized  matrimony  is  the 
harbour  of  safety.  When  the  bachelor  ignores 
the  sacrament,  his  example  becomes  an  endorse 
ment  of  the  advantages  offered  to  travellers  by 
that  famous  old  highway  known  as  'The  Prim 
rose  Path." 

3d.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  student  of  history 
and  economics  to  help  perpetuate  the  species 
and  protect  the  birth  rate. 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

These  are  the  damning  accusations.  Any 
representative  woman's  club,  anywhere,  would 
bring  in  a  verdict  of  "guilty"  against  a  notorious 
bachelor,  in  two  minutes,  without  listening  to 
witnesses. 

The  moment  a  man  marries,  the  indictment  is 
quashed.  For  the  time  being,  he  is  snow  white. 
A  little  later,  after  the  divorce  proceedings,  he 
may  become  speckled,  but  he  never  sinks  quite 
back  to  the  degraded  estate  of  bachelorhood. 

He  tried  to  be  a  good  citizen. 

Having  an  altruistic  and. almost  Chautauquan 
regard  for  home  and  the  marriage  sacrament, 
and  feeling  that  someone  had  to  step  forward 
and  save  the  birth  rate,  he  put  aside  all  consid 
erations  of  personal  convenience  and,  like  a  sun- 
kissed  hero,  stepped  to  the  edge  and  jumped 
over  the  precipice. 

Yes,  he  did!     You  know  he  did! 

Here  is  what  happened: 

The  dear  old  goof  found  himself  in  immediate 
juxtaposition  to  The  Most  Wonderful  Woman 
in  All  the  World.  When  she  smiled  at  him,  his 
blood  pressure  went  up  twenty  points.  When 
she  appeared  to  forget  that  he  was  among  those 
present,  he  wanted  to  rush  into  the  street  and 
lie  down  in  front  of  a  taxicab.  He  hovered 


8  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

near  her,  every  night,  until  ordered  out.  Then 
he  reeled  back  to  his  den,  stepping  from  one 
cloud  to  another.  He  sat  up  in  the  still  hours 
of  the  morning  to  write  notes  which  elected  him 
even  if,  later  on,  he  had  wanted  to  welch.  He 
arrived  at  his  office  without  remembering 
what  had  happened  since  he  left  home.  He 
tried  to  dictate  letters,  and  nothing  came  from 
him  except  gurgles.  He  wondered  what  was 
happening  to  Her.  In  the  telephone  booth- 
only  about  eight  cubic  feet  of  air — partial 
asphyxiation  after  twenty  minutes.  But  who 
wouldn't  be  willing  to  die,  with  the  sound  of 
that  Voice  strumming  in  the  ears,  like  an 
j^Eolian  harp  hanging  in  the  gateway  of  Para 
dise? 

Now,  when  Waldo  finally  got  married,  does 
any  one  really  insist  that  he  did  it  because  he 
was  prompted  by  a  sense  of  his  duty  to  provide 
food  and  lodging  for  a  member  of  the  opposite 
sex? 

Did  he  calmly  decide  to  give  his  endorsement 
to  the  sacrament  of  marriage  and  to  help  protect 
the  birth  rate? 

Did  he? 

Lay  the  bride's  curse  on  the  bachelor,  if  you 
will,  and  let  his  name  become  a  byword  and 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS      9 

hissing  at  every  bridge  party,  but  don't  hang 
any  medals  on  Waldo  until  you  have  all  the 
facts  in  his  case — which  will  prove  to  be  a  car 
bon  copy  of  a  million  other  cases. 

Waldo  got  married  because  he  needed  sleep. 
It  was  a  toss-up  between  Sweeties  and  a  sani 
tarium,  and  he  selected  the  easier  way. 

He  could  not  picture  an  existence  which  did 
not  include  the  radio-magnetic  presence  of 
Honey.  He  was  governed  by  sex  impulse  and 
not  by  what  he  had  read  in  books  on  sociology. 

Not  until  weeks  later,  emerging  from  the  hon 
eymoon  trance,  did  he  discover  that  he  had  hon 
orably  discharged  his  obligations  to  Society  and 
had  become  a  member  of  the  Matrimonial  Le 
gion  of  Honour. 

What  happened  to  Waldo  might  have  hap 
pened  to  any  petrified  hermit  now  hiding  at  a 
club.  And  if  Waldo,  on  a  certain  occasion,  had 
happened  to  meet  merely  Another  Flapper,  in 
stead  of  The  Most  Wonderful  Woman  in  the 
World,  he  might  now  be  camped  at  a  hotel  in 
stead  of  being  assistant  manager  of  a  nursery. 

We  are  all  wisps,  and  the  winds  of  chance 
blow  in  many  directions. 

Just  because  a  man  gets  married  is  no  sign 
that  he  has  a  high  and  holy  and  abiding  regard 


10  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

for  womanhood.  Visit  any  court  room  and  hear 
the  sufferer  go  into  details:  He  threw  a  meat 
platter  at  her — squeezed  her  arm  until  it  was 
black  and  blue — tore  the  feathers  off  her  new 
hat — kicked  the  Pomeranian  into  the  fireplace 
— made  her  sleep  on  the  lounge,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

It  isn't  usually  a  lack  of  intense  regard  and 
reverence  for  womanhood  that  keeps  the  bach 
elor  single.  Often  enough,  it  is  a  lack  of  regard 
for  himself  as  a  fit  companion  for  the  goddess 
up  there  above  him  on  the  pedestal. 

One  of  the  most  highly  despised  bachelors  I 
ever  knew  once  said  that  if  he  ever  asked  a  wo 
man  to  marry  him  and  she  said,  "Yes,"  he'd 
begin  to  have  his  suspicions  of  her.  And  yet  he 
was  supposed  to  be  a  woman-hater! 

The  rooming-houses  are  packed  with  mature 
single  men,  each  of  whom  looks  up  to  Class  A 
women  with  such  worshipful  adoration  that  he 
never  has  felt  worthy  of  possessing  one  of  the 
angelic  creatures. 

Charley  Fresh — who  regards  himself  as  the 
irresistible  captivator — googles  his  way  among 
the  girls  for  six  nights  a  week  and  is  known  as  a 
"lady's  man."  The  marooned  and  isolated  males 
who  watch  his  performance  refuse  to  enter  into 
any  contest  which  features  Charley  Fresh  as  a 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS     11 

formidable  rival.  If  he  is  what  the  women 
want,  they  cannot  qualify.  They  accept  the  in 
evitable,  and  decide  that  by  habit  and  circum 
stances  they  are  debarred  from  the  matrimonial 
raffle,  and  they  might  as  well  make  the  best  of 
it.  They  know  that  they  lack  the  peacock 
qualities  of  the  heartbreaker,  as  they  have 
studied  him  in  Robert  W.  Chambers  and  the 
movies.  They  never  could  live  up  to  the  spec 
ifications.  Not  one  of  them  wants  to  compro 
mise  by  grabbing  a  third-rater.  They  want  a 
topnotcher,  or  nothing;  and  they  haven't  the 
financial  rating,  the  parlour  training,  the  glib 
vocabulary,  the  baby-blue  eyes,  the  curly  hair 
and  the  athletic  shoulders  to  make  them  real 
mates  for  the  distant  Dianas  of  their  day 
dreams. 

Some  are  restrained  by  caution,  some  by  diffi 
dence,  and  some  are  put  out  of  the  running  by 
Fate. 

Is  it  not  true  that  the  bachelor  uncle  is  al 
ways  a  hot  favourite  with  the  children?  And 
doesn't  he  often  tell  Minnie,  his  brother's  wife, 
that  he  would  give  a  thousand  shares  of  Steel 
Common  if  he  could  have  one  of  his  own?  Of 
course,  if  he  had  one  he  wouldn't  know  what  to 
do  with  it;  but  it  just  shows  that  the  parental 


12  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

instinct  can  often  be  aroused  by  a  good  home- 
cooked  dinner. 

This  defense  of  bachelors  is  getting  to  be 
pretty  wobbly;  but  it  still  has  a  few  guns  in  re 
serve.  For  instance,  if  the  birth  rate  lan 
guishes,  shall  no  part  of  the  blame  be  put  on 
the  modernized  young  woman  who  is  ring-shy 
until  he  can  show  her  a  five-thousand-dollar 
automobile? 

How  about  the  great  armies  of  salaried  wo 
men  who  have  come  into  financial  independence 
in  the  office  buildings  and  don't  wish  to  ex 
change  it  for  the  secluded  dependency  of  the  flat 
buildings? 

There  are  oodles  of  reasons  why  the  bachelors 
have  not  married.  Let  there  be  general  rejoic 
ing  that  many  of  them  have  remained  single. 
Special  congratulations  to  the  might-have-been 
children !  They  will  never  know  what  they  have 
escaped. 

Who  knows  but  your  old  friend  Bill  was  made 
a  bachelor  by  Divine  decree,  so  that  some  poor, 
frail  woman  wouldn't  have  to  sit  up  until  two  or 
three  o'clock  every  morning? 

And  now  for  some  pointed  advice  and  inside 
information:  If  you  believe  that  grown-up 
males  who  refuse  to  marry  are,  in  the  aggregate, 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS     13 

a  menace  to  society,  don't  base  your  propaganda 
on  the  assumption  that  bachelors  live  in  a  care 
free  Paradise,  which  they  are  loath  to  exchange 
for  the  harrowing  responsibilities  of  the  family 
circle.  Try  to  convince  the  bridegroom  that  he 
is  winning  a  prize  instead  of  surrendering  a 
birth-right. 

If  you  want  to  keep  a  line  waiting  at  the  mar 
riage  license  window,  preach  to  the  wandering 
sheep  that  they  should  come  in  from  the  bleak 
hills,  and  gambol  in  the  clover  pastures  of  con 
nubial  felicity. 

Arrange  with  the  editors  to  suppress  all  de 
tailed  reports  of  divorce  trials;  also  to  blue- 
pencil  the  shoddy  jokes  which  deal  with  mothers- 
in-law  and  rolling  pins. 

Fix  it  with  theatrical  producers  so  that  the 
stage  bachelor  will  not  be  a  picturesque  hero, 
just  a  trifle  gray  about  the  temples,  who  car 
ries  a  packet  of  dried  rose  leaves  next  to  his 
heart,  while  the  husband  is  a  pale  crumpet 
who  is  always  trembling  and  saying,  "Yes,  my 
dear." 

Try  to  induce  department  stores  to  remove 
those  terrifying  price  tags  from  things  worn  by 
women.  Many  a  wavering  bachelor  has  looked 
in  a  show  window  and  found,  by  an  easy  mental 


14  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

calculation,  that  his  full  salary  for  one  month 
would  supply  My  Lady  with  sufficient  wardrobe 
to  take  her  past  the  morning  tub,  but  not 
enough  to  carry  her  into  the  street. 

The  two  lone  items  of  hats  and  shoes  would 
spell  bankruptcy  to  a  fellow  of  ordinary  means, 
and  he  knows  that  there  must  be  countless  other 
intermediate  items  connecting  up  the  $60  hats 
with  the  $22  shoes. 

At  least,  give  him  credit  for  always  picturing 
his  phantom  wife  as  being  extremely  well 
dressed.  Married  men  may  be  tight  with  the 
checkbook  and  moan  over  the  bills;  but  the  in 
tangible,  make-believe  wife  of  the  secluded 
bachelor  always  wears  the  most  chic  and  allur 
ing  confections  shown  by  the  shops. 

He  has  no  intention  of  giving  up  the  two- 
room  snuggery  which  has  been  his  home  for 
eight  years,  but  if  he  should  become  adven 
turous  at  any  time  and  go  sailing  the  uncharted 
seas,  he  knows  that  his  travelling  companion 
will  be  a  queen  in  royal  garb.  She  will  sit  in  the 
rear  of  the  boat,  bedecked  with  pearls  and  wear 
ing  a  coronet.  He  never  meets  her,  but  his  in 
tentions  are  generous,  up  to  the  last. 

"I  wouldn't  get  hooked  up  unless  I  could  give 
my  wife  the  best  of  everything."  How  often 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS     15 

have  we  heard  those  words,  spoken  by  some 
brave  outlaw.  The  inference  being  that  he  has 
passed  up  a  sacred  privilege  for  fear  that  he 
could  not  supply  Her  with  all  of  the  costly  luxu 
ries  she  deserved. 

Whereas,  his  associates  know  that  he  has  be 
come  encased  with  a  hard  crust  of  habits  and 
could  never  adapt  himself  to  the  give-and-take 
conditions  of  married  life. 

They  can't  be  taught  new  tricks  after  they 
begin  to  moult. 

But  they  continue  to  explain,  and  even  in  the 
deepest  recesses  of  the  most  funereal  reading- 
room  of  the  most  masculine  club,  you  cannot 
find  one  so  fussy  and  crabbed  but  that  he  will 
insist  that  he  is  "fond  of  children/' 

The  lexicon  of  the  unyoked  is  full  of  Old 
Stuff.  The  most  hopeless  misogynist  (see  dic 
tionary)  can  always  hang  the  blame  on  some 
one  else  and  give  himself  a  clean  bill. 

The  point  now  being  made  is  that  the  infor 
mation  agencies,  by  which  the  credulous  public 
is  influenced,  seem  to  aid  and  abet  the  bachelors. 
Newspapers,  magazines,  picture  plays,  novels, 
current  anecdotes — all  have  fallen  into  the  easy 
habit  of  making  it  appear  that  the  bachelor  is  a 
devil  of  a  fellow;  that  the  spirit  of  youth  abides 


16  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

with  him  after  it  has  deserted  the  stoop- 
shouldered  slaves  commonly  depicted  as  mow 
ing  lawns  or  feeding  furnaces. 

The  bachelor,  as  an  individual,  may  sell  very 
low  in  his  immediate  precinct;  but  the  bachelor, 
as  a  type,  has  become  fictionized  into  a  fascinat 
ing  combination  of  Romeo  and  Mephistopheles. 

You  never  saw  a  bachelor  apartment  on  the 
stage  that  was  not  luxurious  and  inviting.  Al 
ways  there  is  a  man  servant:  It  is  midnight  in 
Gerald  Heathcote's  princely  lodgings.  Gerald 
returns  from  the  club.  Evening  clothes?  Ab 
solutely! 

He  sends  Wilkins  away  and  lights  a  cigarette. 
There  is  a  brief  silence,  with  Gerald  sitting  so 
that  the  fireplace  has  a  chance  to  spotlight  him. 
It  is  a  bachelor's  apartment  and  midnight. 
Which  means  that  the  dirty  work  is  about  to 
begin. 

If,  at  any  time,  you  are  sitting  so  far  back  in 
a  theatre  that  you  cannot  get  the  words,  and  you 
see  a  distinguished  figure  of  a  man  come  on 
R.  U.  E.,  self-possessed,  debonair,  patronizing— 
no  need  to  look  at  the  bill.  He  is  a  bachelor,  and 
the  most  beautiful  lady  in  the  cast  is  all  snarled 
up  in  an  "affair"  with  him.  If  she  ever  crosses 
the  threshold  of  his  voluptuous  "lodgings,"  un- 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS     17 

accompanied  by  a  private  detective  or  a  chap 
eron,  her  reputation  won't  be  worth  a  rusty 
nickel. 

That's  the  kind  of  a  reputation  to  have! 
Never  too  old  to  be  wicked !  Lock  up  the  debu 
tantes — here  come  the  bachelors! 

Now,  if  you  persistently  represent  single  bless 
edness  as  seated  in  a  huge  leather  chair,  with 
Wilkins  bringing  whisky  and  soda,  and  a  mar 
ried  woman  of  incredible  attractiveness  waiting 
to  call  him  up  on  the  'phone,  you  need  not  be 
surprised  if,  in  time,  the  whole  social  organiza 
tion  is  permeated  with  a  grotesque  misconcep 
tion  of  the  true  status  of  the  bachelor. 

For  years  I  have  been  compelled  to  observe 
large  flocks  of  him  at  close  range.  Only  about 
one  half  of  one  per  cent,  have  lodgings  which 
could  be  used  effectively  for  a  Belasco  setting. 
Only  a  very  few,  mostly  east  of  Buffalo,  employ 
English  manservants  to  "do"  for  them.  Those 
who  like  to  refer  to  "my  man"  are  compelled  to 
get  new  ones  every  few  weeks.  Probably  the 
lonesomest  job  in  the  world,  next  to  taking  care 
of  a  lighthouse,  is  to  valet  an  unmarried  man 
who  has  gone  in  for  dancing. 

Bachelors  do  not  habitually  wear  evening 
clothes.  To  get  one  of  them  into  the  extreme 


18  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

regalia  may  involve  the  use  of  chloroform. 
Nearly  every  bachelor  knows  a  few  married 
women;  but  these  women  are  not  pursuing  him 
— that  is,  not  all  of  the  time.  Once  in  a  while 
they  pursue  him  in  order  to  find  out  what  has 
become  of  their  husbands. 

If  one  of  these  charming  matrons  visited  a 
bachelor  apartment,  it  would  be  to  throw  a 
bomb.  She  has  him  down  on  her  list  as  poison 
ivy. 

The  bachelor  is  a  polite  outcast,  and  he  knows 
it.  The  married  folks  tell  stories  about  him, 
and  it  is  all  for  the  best  that  he  never  hears 
them.  For  instance:  "I  helped  him  off  with  his 
overcoat  when  he  came  in.  We  wondered  why 
he  didn't  follow  us  into  the  living-room.  I  went 
back  and  found  him  standing  in  the  hallway. 
Yes,  indeed,  waiting  for  his  check!  When  the 
children  came  in  to  meet  him,  he  trembled  like 
a  leaf — thought  they  were  going  to  kiss  him. 
When  he  sat  down  for  dinner  he  inspected  the 
knife  and  then  wiped  the  plate  with  his  napkin. 
After  dinner  the  maid  found  a  quarter  on  the 
tablecloth." 

The  idealized  bachelor  of  fiction  may  be  a 
super-gallant,  but  the  real  article  is  a  scared  fish 
the  moment  he  swims  out  of  his  own  puddle. 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS     19 

Possibly  you  expected  from  me  a  wordy  at 
tempt  to  prove  that  a  man  may  acquire  happi 
ness  by  avoiding  matrimony.  Well,  you  cannot 
secure  contentment  by  a  mere  avoidance  of  any 
thing.  The  only  worth-while  days  are  those  on 
which  you  sell  a  part  of  yourself  to  the  brother 
hood  of  man  and  go  to  the  mattress  at  night 
knowing  that  you  have  rendered  service  to  some 
of  the  fellow  travellers.  The  more  you  camp  by 
yourself  the  more  you  shrivel.  The  curse  and 
the  risk  of  bachelorhood  is  the  tendency  to  build 
all  plans  around  the  mere  comforts  and  indul 
gences  of  the  first  person  singular. 

Sometimes  a  bachelor  gets  to  taking  such 
good  care  of  himself  that  he  forgets  that  some 
day  or  other  he  will  need  six  friends  to  act  as 
pallbearers. 

Next  to  solitaire,  probably  the  most  interest 
ing  single-handed  pastime  is  trying  to  visualize 
one's  own  funeral.  The  bachelor  often  wonders 
if  it  will  be  an  impressive  function. 

No  use  talking,  when  a  transient  undertakes 
the  journey  alone,  he  is  compelled  to  be  in  doubt 
as  to  terminal  facilities.  His  friendships  are  in 
secure  and  all  the  arrangements  unstable.  He 
has  a  lot  of  liberty,  but  he  doesn't  know  what  to 
do  with  it. 


20  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

No  man  can  cheat  the  game  by  merely  hiding 
in  a  hotel  and  having  his  meals  served  in  his 
room. 

He  can  run  in  the  opposite  direction  from 
matrimony  until  he  is  all  out  of  breath,  but  he 
will  never  travel  far  enough  to  get  away  from 
himself.  When  he  flees  from  the  responsibili 
ties  of  family  life  he  is  incidentally  leaving  be 
hind  him  many  of  the  experiences  which  belong 
to  a  normal  career.  He  cannot  get  away  from 
the  double-entry  system  of  accounts  revealed  in 
Doctor  Emerson's  essay  on  Compensation.  The 
books  must  balance. 

No  man  can  take  twelve  months'  vacation 
each  year.  A  vacation  is  no  fun  except  when  it 
comes  as  a  release  from  the  regular  routine. 
Each  July  the  married  man  is  supposed  to  sing: 

"My  wife's  gone  to  the  country.  Hurrah! 
Hurrah!" 

Thereby  he  gets  an  edge  on  the  bachelor. 
He  has  a  chance  to  throw  his  hat  in  the  air  at 
least  once  a  year.  When  does  the  bachelor  pull 
his  "Hurrahs"?  Think  it  over. 

If  the  locked-up  hubbies  believe  that  the  boys 
still  at  large  are  raising  Cain  seven  nights  a  week 
and  fifty-two  weeks  in  the  year,  let  them  cease 
to  be  envious.  It  can't  be  done.  The  most  fa- 


JOYS  OF  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS     21 

tiguing  activity  in  the  world  is  that  of  royster- 
ing.  It  is  terrible  to  be  fed  up  on  roystering. 
Almost  any  group  of  case-hardened  bachelors 
would  rather  row  a  boat  than  sit  around  a  table 
and  sing. 

Bachelors  do  not  regard  their  respective  caves 
and  caverns  as  modified  cabarets.  Their  so- 
called  home  life  is  merely  a  recognition  of  the 
physical  fact  that  no  one  can  entirely  dispense 
with  slumber. 

The  "jolly  bachelor"  in  his  own  retreat  is 
often  just  as  jolly  as  a  festoon  of  crape.  He  is 
not  discontented.  He  is  calmly  reconciled.  But 
not  celebrating. 

He  has  been  saved  from  the  shipwreck  by 
miraculous  intervention,  but  he  finds  himself 
on  a  lonely  island  and  not  a  sail  in  sight. 

The  bachelor  doesn't  have  to  watch  the  clock, 
and  no  one  is  waiting  to  ask  him  where  he  has 
been;  but  how  about  that  rapidly  approaching 
day  when  he  will  not  find — in  all  the  world — 
ham  and  eggs  that  are  cooked  just  right  or 
coffee  fit  to  drink? 

As  the  autumn  days  grow  shorter,  and  each 
milestone  begins  to  look  more  like  a  tombstone, 
the  bachelor  becomes  less  and  less  declamatory 
regarding  the  joys  of  single  blessedness. 


22  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

He  doesn't  weaken,  mind  you.  He  can  ex 
plain  why  it  would  have  been  manifestly  im 
possible  for  him,  at  any  time,  to  undertake  such 
a  crazy  experiment.  His  training,  his  tempera 
ment,  the  conditions  enforced  by  his  employ 
ment,  the  uncertainty  of  his  financial  outlook 
— these  and  thirty  other  good  reasons  made  it 
utterly  impossible  for  him  even  to  think  of 
playing  such  a  ghastly  joke  on  a  nice  woman. 

He  is  there  with  a  defense;  but  when  you  ask 
him  to  add  up  the  net  blessings  and  benefits 
which  accrue  to  the  bachelor,  his  discourse  be 
comes  diffuse  and  unconvincing.  If  he  is  past 
forty,  he  doesn't  brag  at  all.  If  he  is  past  fifty, 
he  begins  to  talk  about  the  weather. 

And  now,  having  received  all  of  this  secret 
information  from  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  you 
know  as  much  as  we  do  regarding  the  joys  of 
single  blessedness. 


COLLEGE  STUDENTS 

THE  undergraduate — a  confusing  combi 
nation  of  slick-haired  Apollo  and  spoon 
fed  infant. 

We  glance  at  his  pin-feathers  and  grin.  Then 
we  look  him  in  the  eve  and  quail. 

The  old  grad  may  be  rated  as  a  success  in  his 
home  town,  but  when  he  gets  back  among  the 
cloisters  he  discovers  that  he  has  been  travelling 
down-hill  ever  since  he  took  the  sheepskin. 

The  unripe  generation  has  it  on  us  in  even- 
thing  except  experience,  and  the  only  sure  fruit 
of  experience  is  caution,  and  caution  is  always 
the  symbol  of  weakness. 

Bobby  is  an  awkward  hi^h-school  cub,  and 
then,  in  a  matter  of  weeks,  the  transfiguration, 
and  the  demi-god  is  sitting  up  there  on  the  edge 
of  a  cloud,  giving  orders  to  his  relatives  on  the 
dull  earth  below. 

We  are  acquainted  with  his  weaknesses  and 
23 


24  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

respect  them  because  they  are  sanctified  by  tra 
dition. 

The  sophomore  has  vast  reservoirs  filled  with 
special  information  which  would  mean  nothing 
to  a  person  more  than  twenty-four  years  of  age. 
Alternating  with  these  crowded  compartments 
are  roomy,  open  spaces  which  are  approximately 
vacuums. 

It  is  a  marvel  that  he  who  dawdles  should 
know  so  much.  Also  it  is  a  never-ending 
miracle  that  one  who  spends  so  many  hours  in 
classroom  could  have  at  his  command  such 
abysmal  reaches  of  ignorance. 

Those  who  profess  contempt  for  the  rah-rah 
rowdies  and  the  sisterhood  of  fudge-makers 
know  mighty  well  that  we  cannot  have  a  con 
tempt  for  those  of  whom  we  are  deathly  afraid. 

We  may  envy  the  ukelele-player  seated 
beneath  the  pennant  and  we  would  prefer  the 
electric  chair  to  the  cold  appraisements  of  a 
sorority  house  party,  but  those  who  sniff  at  the 
coming  rulers  of  the  universe  are  merely  show 
ing  off  a  cheap  bravado. 

Why  not  recognize  the  fact  that  we  play  sec 
ond  to  the  kids?  The  Governor  and  the  Mater 
never  sell  so  low  in  the  pools  as  when  the  chil 
dren  are  home  from  school. 


COLLEGE  STUDENTS  25 

Which  reminds  us  that  college  students 
should  be  given  credit  for  making  the  most  im 
portant  discovery  of  the  twentieth  century,  vi{., 
that  the  parent  is  a  joke. 


THE  TORTURES  OF  TOURING 

SOME  people  think  that  the  first  purpose 
of  motoring  is  not  to  travel  but  to  ar 
rive.  The  driver  who  carries  his  help 
less  victims  from  Buffalo  to  Albany  in  one  day 
goes  about  accepting  congratulations,  whereas 
he  should  be  hauled  into  court. 

Nothing  emitted  herewith  must  be  regarded 
as  a  narrow-minded,  pedestrian  protest  against 
motoring  in  general.  The  joys  of  life  may  be 
made  to  increase  with  the  multiplication  of  cyl 
inders.  The  privilege  of  cutting  across  country 
and  the  diversion  of  travel  from  stiff  and 
straight  rail  lines  to  shady  by-ways — these  are 
real  boons. 

Attack  is  being  made  only  on  those  motorists 
who  are  obsessed  with  the  belief  that  because  a 
car  can  hit  up  fifty-five  an  hour,  it  is  hanging 
back  when  it  does  a  measly  thirty-five,  and  who 
further  count  up  the  result  of  their  tours  by  the 
miles  instead  of  by  the  smiles. 

The  main  idea  with  the  road-whippets  seems 
26 


TORTURES  OF  TOURING  27 

to  be  the  necessity  of  registering  at  some  far  dis 
tant  point  within  a  highly  sporting  time  limit. 
Probably  the  man  at  the  wheel  gets  most  of 
the  zest  to  be  derived  from  the  performance. 
He  feels  that  exultation  which  accompanies  the 
controlling  and  directing  of  mighty  energies. 
By  hanging  over  the  gear  he  steadies  himself 
physically,  and  he  finds  mental  employment  in 
repeatedly  solving  the  problem  of  how  to  avoid 
sudden  death. 

If  you  like  that  kind  of  motoring,  by  all 
means  claim  the  privilege  of  driving.  Then, 
when  the  car  turns  turtle,  you  will  have  some 
thing  to  hang  on  to  besides  a  Blue  Book. 

If  you  are  a  back-seat  passenger,  with  a  cargo 
rating  the  same  as  that  of  a  suitcase,  a  thermos 
bottle,  or  a  golf  bag,  you  will  find  yourself  rock- 
a-byed  through  whirling  landscapes,  and  realize 
all  the  time  that  you  are  merely  a  limp  Some 
thing,  riding  on  the  winds  of  Chance. 

The  driver  seems  grimly  confident  that  he  can 
always  zip  within  eight  inches  of  the  car  which 
comes  tearing  head  on — insanely  seeking  a  col 
lision.  How  superb  of  him  not  to  give  more 
roadway  than  the  other  fellow  gives!  And  will 
it  be  a  first-page  story,  with  photographs  and 
the  names  in  black  caps?  Or  will  it  be  bunched 


28  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

with  the  other  casualties  of  a  busy  day  on  the 
bloody  highways? 

It  seems  that  the  driver  himself  is  never  fright 
ened.  He  is  too  busy  boring  a  hole  in  the  at 
mosphere  to  consider  the  other  people  in  the 
car.  Their  nerves  may  be  kinked  into  hard 
knots,  and  their  eyes  may  be  protruding,  and 
their  hearts  may  be  suspending  action  for  thirty 
seconds  at  a  stretch,  but  what  wots  it?  The 
delirious  chauffeur  is  having  the  time  of  his 
young  life. 

Usually,  one  of  the  sufferers  is  the  owner  of 
the  car.  He  is  simply  excess  baggage.  His 
only  privilege  is  to  produce  more  money  at  regu 
lar  intervals. 

Besides,  he  knows  that  a  classy  driver  and  a 
high-powered  car  are  both  deeply  insulted  at  the 
very  mention  of  a  speed  limit.  If  held  down  to 
twenty-five  miles  an  hour,  they  feel  that  they 
have  been  demoted  and  had  their  stripes  cut 
off.  They  are  publicly  shamed  when  they  take 
the  dust  of  cars  costing  one  thousand  dollars 
each,  or  even  less.  What  is  the  use  of  going  on 
the  road  unless  all  of  the  white-faced  spectators 
along  the  route  can  be  properly  impressed? 

These  must  be  the  facts,  because  we  know 
that  only  a  few  persons,  possessed  of  abnormal 


TORTURES  OF  TOURING  29 

cravings,  like  to  travel  at  top  speed.  Yet  the 
rarest  sight  in  the  world  is  a  long-waisted,  ex 
pensive  car  moving  through  a  rural  district  at 
a  sane  and  safe  and  sensible  pace.  It  is  always 
trying  to  arrive  at  some  point,  one  hundred 
miles  ahead,  before  six  o'clock  in  the  evening. 

Among  the  back-seat  victims  may  be  found  at 
least  one  Invited  Guest.  When  he  is  asked  if 
he  objects  to  stepping  along  on  high,  he  su 
pinely  answers,  "No." 

To  be  auto-shy  and  favour  a  moderate  gait  is 
evidence  of  moral  inferiority,  the  same  as  being 
seasick  or  wearing  woollen  underwear. 

Probably  persons  really  alive  never  come  so 
near  to  being  dead  as  when  they  fall  out  of  a 
motor  car  at  the  end  of  a  jolly  200-mile  spin. 

"Spin"  is  the  word.  They  know  how  it  feels 
to  be  a  gyroscope.  The  blood  of  each  is  con 
gealed — partly  because  he  has  been  folded  away 
in  a  cramped  posture,  and  partly  because  he  has 
been  visualizing  himself  as  the  central  attraction 
of  a  large  funeral.  The  intellect  and  the  emo 
tions  are  in  a  totally  benumbed  state.  Memory 
is  a  mere  blur  of  shimmying  houses  and  reeling 
telephone  poles. 

The  one  compensation  comes  two  weeks  later 
when  the  sufferer  has  recovered  sufficiently  to  an- 


30  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

nounce  to  the  envious  stay-at-homes  that,  after 
taking  a  late  luncheon  at  Upper  Swattomy,  he 
arrived  at  Manchester  in  time  for  dinner. 

When  a  person  travels  at  the  speed  rate  or 
dained  by  all  high-salaried  drivers,  he  sees 
nothing  much  except  the  roadway.  So  far  as 
relaxation  and  instruction  and  gentle  diversion 
are  concerned,  he  might  as  well  be  put  into  a 
hollow  projectile  and  fired  out  of  a  big  Bertha 
from  one  city  to  another. 

If  he  could  take  a  large  sleeping  powder  and 
lie  down  in  the  bottom  of  the  car,  after  leaving  a 
call,  he  would  be  in  better  condition  at  the  end 
of  the  run,  because  he  would  not  be  compelled 
to  put  in  several  hours  unspiralling  his  nerves. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  start  of  a  long  run  is 
always  delayed.  Every  car  that  you  see  burn 
ing  up  the  pike  is  in  danger  of  being  late  at  the 
next  important  destination,  thereby  losing  caste. 

We  spill  the  golden  hours  with  prodigal  fool 
ishness,  until  we  find  ourselves  in  an  automobile, 
and  then  every  minute  becomes  as  precious  as  a 
pearl. 

There  are  exclamations  of  dismay  when  a 
sharp  detonation  tells  of  tire  trouble.  Instead 
of  finding  it  a  privilege  to  get  out  and  stretch 
the  legs  and  gaze  at  scenery  which  consents  to 


TORTURES  OF  TOURING  31 

stand  still,  the  birds  of  passage  all  begin  moan 
ing  and  looking  at  watches.  It  is  now  4:13  and 
they  expected  to  be  in  Springfield  at  5:30;  but 
it  begins  to  look  as  if  they  might  not  arrive 
there  until  5:45!  Too  bad! 

Americans  are  accused  of  offering  too  many 
sacrifices  to  the  mud  idol  of  Aimless  Hurry. 
They  never  hustle  to  such  small  purpose  as 
when  they  make  this  mud  idol  their  motor  god. 

Every  day  we  see  them  go  grinding  and  flash 
ing  past  our  quiet  place  in  the  country.  Their 
faces  are  tense.  They  stare  straight  ahead 
through  the  disfiguring  goggles.  They  are  half- 
crouched,  to  fight  more  successfully  the  on- 
rushing  current  of  air. 

They  are  temporarily  ossified — studies  in  sus 
pended  animation.  They  may  be  willing  to 
turn  around  and  look,  but  the  cervical  vertebras 
have  become  locked  together  and  will  not  rotate. 
They  can  see  nothing  except  the  white  road 
way,  the  speedometer,  and  the  undertaker. 

The  speed  worshippers  and  schedule  slaves 
have  taken  the  joy  out  of  what  should  be  a  rest 
ful  antidote  for  brain  fag.  Motoring  would 
seem  to  be  a  proper  prescription  for  nervousness. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  poor  neurasthenic  who 
is — or  is  the  victim  of — a  speed  maniac  might 


32  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

as  well  go  over  to  the  electric  light  plant  and 
ride  on  the  flywheel. 

Now  is  the  time  for  an  organization  of  passen 
gers  who  wish  to  protect  themselves  against 
dare-devil  drivers.  It  should  be  oath-bound 
and  effective,  the  same  as  the  Ku  Klux  Klan. 
Declaration  must  be  made  that  the  purpose  of 
motor  touring  is  to  bring  enjoyment  to  all  occu 
pants  of  the  car,  even  if  the  driver  does  earn 
the  contempt  of  Ralph  de  Palma  and  Barney 
Oldfield. 

The  maximum  rate  of  speed  should  be  thirty- 
five  miles  an  hour.  The  moment  the  speedome 
ter  registers  thirty-six,  an  automatic  contrivance 
should  cause  a  placard  to  appear  on  the  wind 
shield  immediately  in  front  of  the  driver.  The 
placard  would  read  as  follows:  "You  are  fired/' 

Or,  better  yet,  have  each  passenger  secrete  on 
his  person,  before  the  start,  a  short  leather  billy 
stuffed  with  sand  or  bird-shot.  This  so-called 
"persuader"  is  the  kind  that  has  been  used  pro 
fessionally  in  all  of  our  large  cities  since  the 
world  was  made  safe  for  democracy.  Just  as 
the  indicator  passes  the  thirty-five-mile  mark, 
each  passenger  will  take  a  firm  grip  on  the  small 
but  dependable  weapon  and  do  his  duty. 

It  needs  to  be  understood,  once  and  for  all, 


TORTURES  OF  TOURING  33 

that  even  those  on  the  back  seats  retain  their 
constitutional  rights  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur 
suit  of  happiness. 

The  driver  must  watch  the  roadway;  but  why 
should  all  the  others  be  compelled  to  help  him? 
When  the  speed  becomes  so  whistling  that  the 
pleasure  jaunt  resolves  itself  into  a  gamble  with 
death,  the  passengers  find  themselves  gazing 
straight  ahead  with  a  sort  of  fascinated  horror. 
Mile  after  mile  they  discern  nothing  but  a  thin 
white  streak,  the  farther  end  of  which  is  linked 
to  the  horizon. 

They  should  not  be  compelled  to  close  their 
eyes  and  curl  their  toes  in  order  to  avoid  going 
into  the  ditch. 

They  should  be  able  to  converse  among  them 
selves  without  having  their  teeth  bent  inward. 

Just  as  there  is  no  fun  in  motoring  when  every 
new  mile  becomes  another  hazardous  adventure, 
so  there  is  no  profit  in  motor  travel  if  too  many 
miles  are  negotiated  each  day. 

Even  when  the  members  of  the  party  are  per 
mitted  to  look  at  the  growing  fields  and  the  graz 
ing  herds  and  the  comatose  villagers  on  the 
front  porches,  they  find  themselves,  after  a  few 
hours,  definitely  filled  up  with  sight-seeing. 
They  are  stuffed  with  impressions. 


34  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

The  average  mortal  can  eat  about  so  much 
food  in  twenty-four  hours  without  discomfort. 
He  can  listen  to  so  much  music  and  look  at  so 
many  pictures  and  read  so  many  pages  of  a 
book.  By  the  same  token,  he  can  speed  only 
a  limited  number  of  miles  across  country  and 
retain  a  normal  human  interest  in  his  surround 
ings.  Let  him  overtax  his  capacity,  and  men 
tal  weariness  supplements  his  physical  torpor, 
and  he  is  suffering  from  what  may  be  designated 
as  motoritis. 

Therefore  let  all  who  have  suffered  unite  in  a 
demand  for: 

1st:  A  speed  limit  of  35  miles  an  hour. 

2d:  A  distance  limit  of  100  miles  a  day. 

Any  one  not  satisfied  with  the  above  arrange 
ment  may  board  an  express  train  and  lie  in  a 
berth. 

Automobiles  must  stop  their  scooting  and 
learn  to  tarry. 

The  occupants  of  a  car  should  not  be  com 
pelled  to  huddle  under  the  lap  robes,  like  hiber 
nating  bears,  for  hours  at  a  time. 

All  of  our  motorists,  everywhere,  are  rushing 
past  the  things  worth  seeing,  instead  of  stopping 
to  enjoy  them.  There  is  no  township,  how 
ever  remote,  but  has  within  its  boundaries  some 


TORTURES  OF  TOURING  35 

exhibit   which   will   instruct   or   entertain   the 
caller. 

In  order  to  crowd  the  one  hundred  daily  miles 
with  rare  entertainment,  the  thing  to  do  is  to 
stop  and  visit  in  every  town.  You  can  get  ac 
quainted  in  two  minutes. 

•  Don't  annoy  the  postmaster  and  don't  go  near 
the  bank.  The  banker  will  think  that  you  want 
a  check  cashed.  Drive  right  into  the  heart  of 
Main  Street  and  pull  up  in  front  of  a  red-white- 
and-blue  pole.  The  barber  is  the  lad  for  you. 
He  is  always  sociable,  and  he  can  immediately 
put  you  in  possession  of  the  local  traditions  and 
scandals.  If  there  is  anything  in  the  whole 
countryside  worth  visiting  he  can  give  you  the 
needed  information,  surrounded  by  details. 

Tell  him  that  as  you  drove  in  through  the 
residence  district,  you  were  more  than  favour 
ably  impressed  and  that  you  have  stopped  off  for 
a  visit — and  what  is  there  to  see?  He  will  im 
mediately  submit  a  list  of  attractions,  which 
may  include  the  Carnegie  Library,  a  blind  pig, 
and  a  milch  cow  that  took  first  prize  at  the  state 
fair. 

Or,  better  yet,  he  will  ask  Elmer  to  finish  the 
man  he  is  shaving,  and  he  will  put  on  his  coat 
and  take  you  out  to  meet  the  town  celebrity. 


36  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

It  may  be  the  old  soldier  who  gave  General 
Hooker  a  lot  of  good  advice  at  Lookout  Moun 
tain,  or  the  woman  who  has  been  working 
twenty-two  years  on  a  patch  quilt  which  will 
eventually  have  seventy-five  thousand  pieces  of 
silk  in  it.  Or  he  may  want  to  show  you  the 
birthplace  of  the  man  who  played  the  slide 
trombone  with  Sousa's  Band  for  seven  years. 
Every  incorporated  town  has  some  hold  upon 
fame.  Here  are  some  sights  dug  up  in  smaller 
Indiana  settlements  which  are  entirely  over 
looked  by  the  tourists : 

A  town  idiot  who  can  foretell  the  weather  and  has 
not  made  a  mistake  in  five  years. 

A  red-headed  negro  who  drives  a  pink  mule — art 
eclipsed  by  nature. 

An  endless  chain  whittled  out  of  one  piece  of  wood. 

A  house  which  was  one  of  the  main  stations  on  the 
"Underground  Railway"  for  fugitive  slaves,  before  the 
war. 

The  quarter-mile  track  on  which  Dan  Patch  received 
his  first  try-out  as  a  pacer.  First  valued  at  $500  and 
later,  after  establishing  a  world's  record,  sold  for 
$100.000. 

The  cream  separator  first  used  for  making  quick 
applejack  out  of  hard  cider. 

And  so  on,  and  so  on.  Our  neglected  nation 
has  stored  up  a  wealth  of  recent  legends  and  is 


TORTURES  OF  TOURING  37 

rich  in  "character  types/'  The  way  to  "See 
America  First"  is  to  resist  the  silly  habit  of 
rushing  furiously  from  one  city  to  another. 
Seek  out  the  communities  in  which  the  residents 
are  severally  important  as  individuals  and  not 
mere  names  in  a  directory. 

Get  the  habit  of  stopping  and  visiting  at  the 
slightest  provocation.  Bestow  a  little  friendly 
attention  on  the  native  population,  and  it  will 
warm  up  and  begin  to  radiate  hospitality.  The 
city  man  who  is  not  "stuck  up"  always  makes 
a  sensational  hit  in  the  small  town.  Of  course, 
if  you  are  a  metropolitan  yap  with  a  movie  edu 
cation  and  a  vaudeville  sense  of  humour  and 
want  the  "rubes"  to  perform  for  your  entertain 
ment,  you  had  better  keep  right  on  travelling. 
And  ask  the  local  garage  man  what  his  charges 
are  before  you  hire  him.  When  the  rural  worm 
turns  he  gives  a  correct  imitation  of  a  boa  con 
strictor. 

In  order  to  insure  more  leisurely  habits  of 
travel  and  arouse  a  proper  interest  in  the  varied 
charms  of  all  outlying  regions,  we  need  in  this 
country  an  entirely  new  sort  of  guide  book  for 
motorists. 

The  kind  of  book  now  in  use  devotes  too  much 
attention  to  the  roadway,  instead  of  giving  spicy 


38  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

information  about  what  may  be  seen  from  the 
roadway. 

It  is  a  mere  chart,  whereas  it  might  be  made 
a  document  bubbling  with  human  interest. 

Even  when  it  turns  aside  to  say  something 
about  a  town  on  the  route,  it  gives  inconsequen 
tial  facts,  such  as  the  population  and  the  alti 
tude  above  sea  level.  Even  the  people  who  live 
there  do  not  know  how  much  they  are  elevated 
above  sea  level.  And  who  cares  about  the  popu 
lation?  The  question  isn't  how  many  people 
live  in  the  town,  but  what  are  they  up  to? 

Let  us  have  road  guides  which  will  keep  the 
tourists  sitting  up  and  interested.  Something 
like  the  following: 

ROUTE  23A— HICKSVILLE   TO  JUNIPER— 26. 8M 

0.0  Hicksville.  Started  by  Truman  Hicks  about  1800. 
The  town  is  famous  on  account  of  the  Liberty  Hotel 
(large  faded  structure  on  Main  Street),  it  being  claimed 
that  more  travelling  men  have  committed  suicide  within 
its  walls  than  in  any  two  other  hotels  in  the  state.  The 
elderly  persons  seen  along  the  business  thoroughfares 
are  retired  farmers.  They  are  talking  about  the  taxes. 
The  small  vacant  room  next  to  the  post  office  was  used 
as  a  manicure  parlour  for  three  weeks  during  1917,  but 
public  sentiment  prevailed.  In  order  to  get  out  of 
town  as  soon  as  possible  proceed  east  on  Main  Street. 
Note  on  the  left  the  drug  store  owned  by  Henry  F. 
Pilsbry.  After  local  option  went  into  effect,  and  be 
fore  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  was  passed,  Mr. 
Pilsbry  bought  two  large  farms.  Look  out  for  stretch 
of  bad  pavement.  The  contractor  who  did  the  work 
was  related  to  the  mayor.  Cross  R.  R. 


TORTURES  OF  TOURING  39 

2.6  Bear  toward  left  with  County  Poor-Farm  on  right. 
The  old  gentlemen  with  carpet  slippers,  seated  under 
the  trees,  thought  they  could  outguess  the  Board  of 
Trade. 

3.3  On  a  distant  hill  to  right  note  the  spacious  farm  dwell 
ing  owned  by  Waldo  Jefferson,  who  holds  a  world's 
record  for  being  converted,  having  joined  church  every 
winter  since  1879. 

4.2  Jog  left,  passing  on  left  country  schoolhouse  attended 
in  1874  by  Rufus  Jinkins,  for  many  years  head  bar 
tender  at  the  Burnet  House,  Cincinnati,  O. 

5.1  Sparrow's  Grove.     In  the  general  store  of  Eli  Nesbit 
may  be  found  stick  candy  dating  back  to  U.  S.  Grant's 
first  Administration.     Worth  a  short  visit,  as  it  claims 
the  distinction  of  being  the  only  village  in  America 
which  does  not  offer  souvenir  post   cards  for  sale. 
Straight  on  past  a  fawn-coloured  bungalow  with  purple 
trim  to 

5 . 9  Large  stock  farm  owned  by  Lee  J.  Truckby,  who  never 
took  a  drink  of  liquor  and  has  been  married  four  times. 
He  believes  in  infant  damnation  and  is  opposed  to 
hired  girls.  May  be  found  back  of  the  barn,  keeping 
tab  on  the  help.  Visitors  just  as  welcome  as  the  foot 
and  mouth  disease. 

7.2  Nestling  in  a  grove  of  jack  oaks  may  be  found  Zion 
M.  E.  Church.     Built  in  the  Centennial  year.     Cupola 
added  in  1888  after  a  design  by  the  County  Superin 
tendent  of  Schools.     The  cantata  of   "Esther"  was 
given  at  this  church  during  the  darkest  period  of  the 
World  War,  netting  $41  for  the  Red  Cross. 

8.4  On  the  left  the  Saxby  home.     There  are  four  Saxby 
boys,  all  of  whom  can  move  their  ears. 

9.8  Note  at  right  in  pasture  a  venerable  elm  tree.  It  is 
said  that  under  this  tree  the  Potawatami  chiefs,  while 
intoxicated,  signed  a  treaty  with  Colonel  Hoskins, 
receiving  $2  worth  of  merchandise  for  all  territory 
lying  west  of  Sandusky. 

11.7  Nubbin  Hill  (Pop.  63) .  Locally  famous  as  the  home  of 
Baz  Turnbull,  who  travelled  with  a  circus  for  two 
years.  Mr.  Turnbull  is  said  to  be  the  only  man  in  the 
township  who  still  knows  where  to  get  it.  He  is  em 
ployed  at  the  cream  depot  and  may  be  easily  identified 
as  the  one  wearing  a  derby. 


40  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

13.2  Log  cabin  back  in  woods  at  left,  built  in  1838  by  Jeph- 
tha  Halliday,  father  of  twelve  children.     The  second 
oldest  son  (Gale)  moved  to  Chicago,  where  he  was  well 
known  to  thousands  of  people,  having  officiated  for 
years  as  train  caller  at  the  Illinois  Central  Station. 

16.7  Chautauqua  Grove  in  suburbs  of  Peatsburg.  The  tab 
ernacle  may  be  seen  in  distance.  It  was  in  this  grove 
that  a  member  of  the  Peabody  Family  of  Swiss  Bell 
Ringers  became  engaged  to  Professor  Herman  Belcher, 
mind-reader  and  mesmerist.  They  were  married  later 
at  Alton,  111.,  separating  at  Crawfordsville,  Ind. 

16.9  Peatsburg  (Pop.  1,500,  many  residents  having  been 
overlooked  by  the  census  enumerators;  who,  in  1920, 
reported  a  total  of  967).  Has  more  pool  players  in 
proportion  to  size  than  any  other  place  in  the  world. 
Jasper  Wilkins,  champion  checker  player  of  the  seventh 
Congressional  District,  lives  in  small  frame  cottage 
back  of  the  Harney  &  Co.  Hardware  store.  Mr. 
Wilkins  is  a  member  of  the  Volunteer  Fire  Depart 
ment.  His  wife  takes  in  washing.  George  Spelvin, 
who  may  be  found  in  front  of  post  office  (cataract 
over  left  eye),  has  been  working  for  15  years  on  an  in 
vention  intended  to  do  away  with  steel  rails  in  the 
operation  of  railway  lines.  He  will  exhibit  blue-prints 
to  those  who  can  be  trusted. 

17.3  New  iron  bridge  spans  the  Catouchie  River.     Note 
names  of  County  Commissioners  on  tablet.     All  were 
candidates  for  reelection  and  were  defeated. 

19.4  Near  hitch-rack  immediately  in  front  of  the  Parson 
farmhouse  (bed  of  nasturtiums  in  front  yard),  two 
citizens  of  Putnam  County  engaged  in  a  desperate  fist 
fight  in  October,  1920,  the  subject  of  the  controversy 
being  the  League  of  Nations.     Said  to  be  the  only  time 
when  the  whole  thing  was  really  settled. 

20 . 4  Favourite  picnic  grounds  for  Sunday-schools  and  benev 
olent  orders.  Over  1,000  empty  pop-bottles  picked 
up  during  last  fiscal  year. 

22.0  Bennington  (Pop.  8).  Mr.  Klingfeldt,  age  93  (brick 
house  with  portico),  can  remember  when  tomatoes 
were  not  supposed  to  be  good  to  eat. 

23 . 2  Artesian  well  at  right.  Water  highly  impregnated  and 
therefore  supposed  to  have  medicinal  value.  Visited 
by  Irvin  Cobb  during  recent  lecture  tour. 


TORTURES  OF  TOURING  41 

24.8  Fair  grounds  at  right.  On  half-mile  track  Lulu  Liv 
ingstone  in  1908  paced  one  mile  in  2.48  without  toe- 
weights.  In  Floral  Hall  two  years  ago  was  exhibited  a 
rutabaga  which  bore  a  striking  resemblance  to  Eben 
Mosely,  president  of  the  Juniper  State  Bank.  It  was 
seen  by  thousands. 

26.8  Juniper  (Pop.  3,402).  County  seat,  and  known  far 
and  wide  as  "The  Pride  of  Putnam."  Has  had  a 
cafeteria  since  1915  and  gets  all  the  Douglas  Fairbanks 
releases  within  a  year  after  they  are  seen  in  large  cities. 
Ellis  Trimble,  office  above  the  Help- Yourself  Grocery, 
was  one  of  the  greatest  criminal  lawyers  in  the  northern 
part  of  the  state  up  to  the  time  they  took  his  liquor 
away  from  him.  Mae  Effingham,  a  native  of  the 
town,  is  now  a  member  of  the  Winter  Garden  chorus. 
Photographs  of  Miss  Effingham,  in  costume,  may  be 
found  in  the  window  of  the  Applegate  Piano  and  Music 
Store.  Clyde  Applegate  (the  one  with  the  gold  in  his 
teeth)  can  relate  many  interesting  anecdotes  dealing 
with  her  girlhood  back  in  the  old  home  town. 

That  is  merely  a  suggestion;  it  is  simply  a 
stray  leaf  taken  from  the  guide  book  of  the 
future.  But  surely,  even  from  this  sample,  you 
can  begin  to  sense  the  possibilities. 

Europe  has  no  monopoly  on  hallowed  tradi 
tions,  and  the  Wabash  has  legends  the  same  as 
the  Rhine,  if  we  will  just  dig  them  up. 

Travel  slowly.  Stop  often.  Get  under  the 
cover  of  every  neighbourhood.  Snuggle  up  until 
you  can  feel  the  very  heart-beats  of  your  be 
loved  countrymen.  The  more  you  find  out 
about  them,  the  less  inclined  you  will  be  to  pay 
$2.50  to  get  into  a  theatre. 


DIGNITY 

WHEN  a  man  cannot  be  anything 
else,  he  can  be  dignified.  Dignity  is 
the  sure-fire  asset  of  the  twenty-two 
calibers. 

The  physiognomy  must  be  stern  and  rock- 
bound.  It  is  better  to  wear  dark  clothes.  The 
vox  humana  should  be  keyed  low. 

All  horse-doctors,  phrenologists,  and  justices 
of  the  peace  are  dignified.  Also  the  head  floor 
walker.  Also  the  village  embalmer. 

In  every  community  there  are  citizens  who 
are  useful  only  as  background  to  a  public 
speaker.  The  visiting  celebrity  and  the  pitcher 
of  water  are  at  stage-centre,  and  the  local  ex 
amples  of  Dignity  are  in  minstrel  formation  be 
hind — a  massive  border  of  self-conscious  recti 
tude  and  wisdom.  They  have  brain-lobes  of 
exactly  the  same  chemical  composition  as  kohl 
rabi.  But  they  look  like  the  Council  of  the 
League  of  Nations. 

All  during  the  vocalizing  they  gaze  at  the 
42 


DIGNITY  43 

speaker  with  a  heavy  and  frowning  simulation 
of  interest.  Each  smile  bestowed  upon  a  pleas 
antry  is  painful  compromise. 

They  have  been  hand-picked  to  provide  a 
draping  of  gloom  to  the  proceedings,  and  they 
never  wander  from  the  assignment. 

Sheathed  in  the  armour-plate  of  Dignity, 
many  a  counterfeit  travels  undetected  from  the 
grammar-school  to  the  grave.  Probably  no 
one,  except  his  wife,  is  ever  on  to  him. 

Nine  times  out  of  ten,  a  godlike  demeanour 
may  be  regarded  as  the  fagade  of  a  Greek  tem 
ple  opening  abruptly  into  a  one-room  bunga 
low. 

Dignity  was  invented  to  mask  the  absence  of 
works. 

Some  men  are  silent  while  brooding  over  the 
solemnities  of  life  and  others  are  silent  because 
they  haven't  anything  to  pass  out  through  the 
window. 

Profound  calm  and  an  air  of  abstraction  may 
prove  that  the  subject  is  meditating  on  the 
Lodge  theory  of  life  beyond  the  grave  or  they 
may  indicate  that  a  short  circuit  has  been 
established  between  the  cerebellum  and  the 
medulla  oblongata  and  all  the  cylinders  are 
missing. 


44  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

Only  those  who  have  moral  courage  can  stand 
out  in  the  presence  of  Dignity  and  be  frivolous 
and  deliberately  normal.  The  man  who  fights 
off  the  temptation  to  be  dignified  must  expect 
an  inferior  rating.  Only  the  connoisseurs  will 
identify  him  as  a  hero. 

Nevertheless,  avoid  the  blight  of  Dignity. 
Don't  use  any  -of  it.  The  whole  world-supply 
is  needed  in  Great  Britain. 

Dignity  received  a  body-blow  when  the  frock 
coat  went  out. 

The  dancing-craze,  and  golf,  and  Roosevelt, 
and  the  Eighteenth  Amendment,  and  other  in 
fluences  have  weakened  the  cult.  Bourbon 
whisky  supplied  many  an  old-time  lawyer  with 
the  Dignity  which  is  supposed  to  impress  juries. 

Doctors  are  no  longer  identified  by  their 
whiskers,  and  college  professors  are  becoming 
approximately  human.  Is  it  not  true  that  the 
young  man  in  the  box-office  at  the  theatre  is 
less  like  King  Solomon  than  he  was  a  few  years 
ago?  Piano-tuners  are  more  affable.  There  is 
hope. 


LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY 

A  MAN  is  old  on  the  day  when  he  begins 
doddering  of  the  past  instead  of  planning 
for  the  future.  With  reluctance  I  sit 
me  down  to  check  up  the  changes  that  advertise 
themselves  to  a  mere  child  of  fifty. 

I  discover  this  year  that  a  young  man  is  one 
under  fifty.  An  old  man  is  one  over  fifty. 

There  is  no  other  rule.  We — whether  thirty- 
two  or  forty-seven  or  fifty-three — continue  to  be 
just  ourselves,  neither  old  nor  young. 

Those  who  antedated  have  given  me  their 
word  on  it  that  it  is  fifty  years  since  I  was  born. 
An  even  fifty  years.  There  is  no  getting  away 
from  the  cruel  mathematics. 

James  Whitcomb  Riley  took  off  five  years  and 
fooled  everybody  until  the  day  after  he  died, 
but  he  did  not  have  many  relatives. 

Oh,  very  well !  We  have  come  to  a  crossing 
and  we  must  hop  it.  I  am  fifty  years  old,  and 
it  almost  chokes  me  to  say  it,  because  it  was 
only  night  before  last  that  someone  told  me  I 

45 


46  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

was  a  rising  young  author  who  would  be  heard 
from  in  time. 

I  could  see  myself  at  fifty.  Bearded,  of 
course.  Probably  in  Congress.  Certainly  wear 
ing  the  dark  regalia  of  a  learned  profession. 

Instead  of  which,  here  I  am  in  plaid  knickers, 
trying  to  control  my  mashie. 

As  for  my  failure  to  represent  the  Tenth  Dis 
trict,  I  have  seen  Congress  and  I  am  reconciled. 

For  a  grand  total  of  forty-five  years  I  have 
been  revising  my  judgments  and  watching  the 
parade. 

What  a  privilege  to  happen  along  just  when 
things  are  eventuating!  All  the  early  regrets 
at  having  missed  the  Civil  War  are  forgotten, 
now  that  I  have  lived  to  know  Theodore  Roose 
velt  and  watch  the  stupendous  show  in  Europe. 

The  period  between  1871  and  1916  has  been 
so  full  of  readjustments  and  rapid  adaptations, 
one  is  ready  to  believe  that  for  fifty  years  be 
fore  the  dawn  of  this  golden  era  people  did 
nothing  much  except  sit  around  and  wait. 

It  is  all  so  wonderful  that  I  feel  like  telling 
the  story  to  the  dear  young  people  who  never 
saw  bustles  or  box-toed  boots,  and  possibly 
never  heard  a  throaty  tenor,  with  oil  on  his  hair, 
sing  "Juanita." 


LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY      47 

When  we  regard  the  long  and  unvaried  exist 
ence  of  the  Democratic  party  or  a  redwood  tree, 
we  know  that  a  very  brief  span  has  elapsed  since 
Horace  Greeley  thought  he  was  running  against 
U.  S.  Grant,  and  yet  that  campaign  seems  al 
most  as  remote  as  the  Punic  Wars. 

All  that  we  cherished  in  72  has  been  moved 
to  the  attic. 

So  far  as  I  can  testify,  and  as  I  do  verily  be 
lieve,  nothing  much  happened  previous  to  1870. 
The  world  at  that  time  was  all  prairie  and  corn 
fields,  except  for  the  white  houses  of  the  county 
seat  and  a  dark  line  of  timber  against  the  hori 
zon. 

There  was  a  railway  in  front  of  our  house  at 
the  edge  of  town.  Beyond  the  railway  ran  a 
country  lane — gray  and  rutty  in  dry  weather, 
black  porridge  every  spring. 

As  for  the  railroad,  the  soft  metal  of  the  rails 
was  dreadfully  snagged,  and  the  locomotive  was 
mostly  smokestack. 

Wagons,  canopied  with  white,  toiled  through 
the  mud,  all  headed  for  Kansas  and  Populism. 

It  was  only  a  short  cut  across  fields  to  un 
broken  prairie  that  never  had  been  touched  by 
plough. 

Every  township  in  the  Middle  West  should 


48  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

have  reserved  and  parked  one  square  mile  of 
the  prairie,  leaving  it  just  as  the  settlers  found 
it.  It  was  a  grassy  jungle  matted  with  flower 
gardens.  Tall  perennials  shot  up  their  gummy 
stalks  and  waved  broad,  fibrous  leaves.  A  trav 
eller  leaving  the  beaten  road  found  himself  chin- 
high  in  a  rank  growth  of  blue  and  yellow  blooms. 

We  have  gasolene  chariots  now,  and  clothes 
ordered  from  the  catalogue,  but  the  glory  of  the 
open  country  has  departed,  save  for  a  vivid 
patch  here  and  there  at  some  neglected  corner. 

When  I  was  a  boy,  the  explorer  could  start 
from  anywhere  out  on  the  prairie  and  move  in 
any  direction  and  find  a  slough.  In  the  centre, 
an  open  pond  of  dead  water.  Then  a  border 
of  swaying  cat-tails;  tall  rushes;  reedy  blades, 
sharp  as  razors,  out  to  the  upland,  spangled  with 
the  gorgeous  blue  and  yellow  flowers  of  the  vir 
gin  plain. 

A  million  frogs  sang  together  each  evening, 
and  a  billion  mosquitoes  came  out  to  forage 
when  the  breeze  died  away. 

Did  you  ever  try  to  elude  the  man-eating  gal- 
linipper  by  sitting  in  the  smoke  of  a  "smudge"? 
A  smudge  was  an  open  fire,  smothered  with 
damp  leaves  or  fresh  grass. 

The  Anopheles  mosquito,  purveyor  of  ma- 


LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY       49 

laria,  went  along  unrestricted  and  unsuspected. 
Chills  and  fever  entered  into  the  programme  of 
every  life;  but  those  who  chattered  thought 
they  were  being  jounced  by  the  hand  of  Provi 
dence. 

The  "smudge"  is  gone,  and  quinine  is  no 
longer  a  staple. 

The  sloughs  have  gone,  and  after  years  of  tile 
drainage  and  the  levelling  processes  of  culti 
vation,  the  five-acre  pond  on  which  we  skated 
is  just  a  gentle  swale  in  a  dry  and  tidy 
cornfield. 

Thirty  dollars  an  acre  is  no  longer  a  boom 
price.  Offer  the  man  two  hundred,  and  you 
fail  to  interest  him. 

Geese  and  brant,  mallards  and  red-heads,  prai 
rie  chickens  and  quail — so  plentiful  that  the 
hunters  brought  in  wagon  loads.  We  used  to 
tire  of  quail  potpie  and  long  for  meat  from  the 
butcher's. 

This  is  not  Saskatchewan  or  Oklahoma  that 
we  are  describing.  This  country  of  croaking 
frogs  and  black  mud  and  myriad  flocks  of  wild 
fowl  was  so  near  Chicago  that  one  night  in 
October,  just  as  far  back  as  I  can  reach  into  the 
past,  we  sat  on  the  fence  and  looked  at  a  blur 
of  illumination  in  the  northern  sky  and  learned 


50  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

that  the  city  which  we  had  not  seen  was  burning 
up  in  a  highly  successful  manner. 

Squeaking  loads  of  grain  filed  by  our  place  on 
their  way  to  the  elevator.  Many  of  the  drivers 
wore  army  overcoats  of  ultra  blue. 

Coming  out  from  town,  it  was  a  sportive  cus 
tom  to  gallop  the  horses,  while  the  driver  stood 
erect  in  his  wagon  box  and  let  out  staccato  yelps. 
In  those  days  the  rural  desperado  drank  his 
whisky  undiluted  and  sent  a  periodical  defi  to 
the  town  marshal. 

Some  of  the  old  comrades  held  on  to  their 
blue  overcoats  for  an  incredible  number  of  years, 
but  now  both  the  comrades  and  the  blue  capes 
have  been  laid  away,  and  the  country  saloon  has 
been  killed  dead  by  the  church  women,  and  there 
is  no  bottled  nourishment  left  anywhere  except 
in  the  quiet  cellars  of  the  well-to-do. 

It  was  only  a  few  ticks  back  on  the  long  clock 
of  eternity,  and  yet  it  was  an  era  of  melodeons, 
tin  lanterns,  clumsy  vehicles,  and  stick  candy 
striped  with  cinnamon. 

The  first  lessons  learned  were  those  of  politi 
cal  hatred.  We  studied  our  Nast  cartoons  be 
fore  we  tackled  the  primer.  I  know  now  that 
Samuel  J.  Tilden  was  a  courtly  old  gentleman 
who  lived  in  Gramercy  Park,  but  in  '76  he  was 


LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY       51 

a  snorting  demon  with  eyeballs  like  coals  of  fire. 

How  our  elders  held  to  the  old  grudge  against 
Copperheads  and  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle! 
The  traitors  attended  church  and  travelled  the 
straight  and  narrow,  but  they  could  not  cover 
the  blackness  of  their  souls  with  boiled  shirts. 

We  believed  that  if  the  Democrats  won,  the 
blacks  would  be  returned  to  slavery,  the  rebels 
would  be  pensioned,  the  earth  would  slip  on  its 
axis  and  the  whole  solar  system  would  be  dis 
arranged. 

What  has  become  of  the  partisan  \vho  wore 
the  oilcloth  uniform  and  carried  the  smoky 
torch?  He  is  circulating  a  subscription  list  and 
trying  to  get  the  Chautauqua  back  next  year. 

Where  are  the  girls  who  wore  the  white  dresses 
and  rode  on  the  decorated  hay  wagon  and 
squealed  for  Hayes  and  Wheeler?  They  are  in 
session  at  the  assembly  room  of  the  Carnegie 
Library,  trying  to  follow  Amy  Lowell. 

Between  1870  and  1880  I  came  to  know  a 
small  town  dropped  down  in  the  comparative 
lonesomeness  of  the  corn  belt.  That  is  why  I 
find  myself  setting  two  pictures  side  by  side. 

One  is  the  town  of  the  seventies.  It  was  gar 
nished  with  mud,  bordered  by  wooden  sidewalks 
and  dimly  marked  against  the  night  by  coal-oil 


52  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

lamps.  The  general  store  was  a  congress  of 
odours  emerging  from  open  crates  and  barrels. 
The  front  of  every  cubical  house  was  a  sealed 
tomb,  with  lace  curtains  mercifully  screening 
the  gilt  frames  and  varnished  monstrosities. 

Against  this  picture  I  set  the  sophisticated 
county  seat  of  to-day.  To  begin  with:  Pave 
ments,  curbs,  and  hard  sidewalks,  because  we 
learned  twenty  years  ago  that  these,  and  not  lit 
erary  clubs,  are  the  primary  essentials  of  civi 
lized  existence.  The  motor  cars  whiz  by  each 
summer  night — an  endless  parade  under  the  arc 
lights.  The  show  windows  and  shops  are  ex 
positions  of  decorative  art.  The  house  shaped 
like  a  cube  has  grown  wings  and  borders,  and 
has  a  roomy,  vine-draped  veranda. 

When  one  is  looking  back  from  fifty,  no 
doubt  he  should  mark  the  growth  of  tolerance, 
the  quadrupled  interest  in  books  and  magazines, 
the  slow  death  of  political  hatreds,  the  gentle 
evaporation  of  religious  bigotry,  the  laudable 
craving  to  know  more  about  the  rest  of  the 
world  (either  by  travel  or  hearsay),  the  reversal 
of  the  verdict  on  higher  education  and  scientific 
methods,  and  all  those  side-lines  of  evolution 
which  have  converted  the  simple  villager  into  a 
keen  little  cosmopolite. 


LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY       53 

The  change  is  there,  and  those  who  don't 
think  so  are  invited  to  visit  a  small  town  and 
try  to  put  something  over. 

But  when  I  motor  past  the  old  corners,  the 
never-ending  surprise  is  to  find  these  people, 
who  camped  out  among  the  swamps  a  few  years 
ago  and  led  a  sort  of  skillet  and  axe  existence, 
now  placidly  enjoying  their  kitchen  cabinets, 
cream  separators,  phonographs,  telephones,  trac 
tors,  pumping  engines,  threshers  that  feed  the 
sheaves  and  stack  the  straw  and  measure  the 
grain,  running  water  at  the  kitchen  sink  and  a 
bathtub  upstairs,  R.  F.  D.  boxes,  and  whole 
flocks  of  automobiles,  and  not  seeming  to  know 
they  are  implicated  in  a  set  of  miracles. 

If  the  boys  of  to-day  are  going  to  look  down 
from  their  biplanes  in  1950  and  pity  the  pioneers 
of  1916,  the  question  is,  how  far  do  we  go  before 
we  slow  up? 

In  the  eighties  I  came  to  know  the  inland  col 
lege  and  tasted  the  excitements  of  a  town  large 
enough  to  have  a  Grand  Opera  House. 

The  school  at  which  I  served  my  term 
called  itself  a  university,  because  it  was  not 
a  college.  Later  on  it  became  important,  but 
thirty  years  ago,  borrowing  some  scornful  de 
scriptive  from  an  Eastern  educator,  it  did  noth- 


54  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

ing  much  except  issue  catalogues  and  gasp  for 
breath. 

The  sequestered  college  of  the  eighties  calls 
for  a  bit  of  looking  back.  We  thought  we  were 
about  six  feet  behind  Yale  and  Harvard,  but  we 
didn't  even  have  a  yell.  The  equipment  was 
meagre  and,  although  we  could  show  some  first- 
class  men  in  the  faculty,  the  curriculum  had  not 
yet  developed  to  the  specializing  stage,  and  we 
took  our  medicine  from  a  few  large  bottles  bear 
ing  stock  labels. 

Student  life  was  almost  primitive.  We  lived 
in  a  dormitory  and  reached  our  hair  and  went  to 
"literary"  meetings.  We  had  no  organized  ath 
letics  with  coaches  and  trainers  and  a  modern 
gym.  The  clubs  and  frats  in  their  spacious 
homes,  the  daily  paper,  the  bulky  "annual,"  the 
glee  club,  dramatic  clubs,  May  festivals,  the 
university  band,  the  student  union,  and  the 
twenty  other  activities  that  now  complicate  an 
undergraduate  career  were  all  in  the  future 
tense. 

The  photograph  of  the  senior  wearing  the 
single-breasted  "Prince  Albert"  and  the  gates 
ajar  collar  and  the  quilted  cravat  is  like  a  mes 
sage  from  another  world. 

Since  I  took  my  degree,  the  young  men,  not 


LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY       55 

only  in  colleges  but  also  in  the  large  and  small 
towns  and  the  cities,  have  been  going  keener  and 
keener  on  outdoor  life  and  organized  sport.  The 
young  fellow  who  expects  to  inherit  some  money 
from  his  father  finds  himself  out  of  the  fashion 
if  he  puts  in  too  many  hours  at  the  pool-room. 
He  tries  for  some  sort  of  team  if  he  has  the  ghost 
of  a  chance,  and  he  must  slam  a  fairly  good 
game  of  tennis  and  be  somewhat  better  than  a 
duffer  in  golf. 

When  an  old  grad  takes  me  by  the  arm  and 
says,  "I  want  you  to  meet  my  kid,"  I  take  it  for 
granted,  in  advance,  that  the  youngster  will  be 
deeper  in  the  chest  and  squarer  at  the  shoulders 
and  more  of  a  husky  in  general  than  Dad  used 
to  be  in  the  days  when  our  principal  daily  exer 
cise  was  popping  corn  over  a  gas  jet. 

Here  is  a  change  in  which  we  may  take  real 
satisfaction.  The  child  of  fortune  is  no  longer 
flabby,  and  he  has  stopped  using  perfumery. 

If  I  had  to  select  one  adjective  to  describe 
the  rounds  of  existence  in  the  smaller  settle 
ments  thirty  years  ago  I  think  I  should  favour 
the  word  "mopey."  I  mean  the  ante-trolley 
days,  when  gasolene  was  used  for  removing 
grease  spots  and  the  Acme  Photo-Play  Theatre 
was  still  a  feed  store. 


56  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

I  seem  to  have  progressed  on  the  decimal 
system.  From  70  to  '80  I  was  a  small-town 
question  mark.  Between  '80  and  '90  I  wore 
tight  trousers  and  began  to  see  the  great  world. 
From  '90  to  1900,  I  did  exactly  ten  years  on  a 
Chicago  newspaper.  During  the  next  ten  years 
I  travelled  to  far-away  countries,  beyond  the 
circulation  of  newspapers  containing  reviews  of 
the  plays  I  had  written.  If  we  are  going  to  be 
geological,  I  suppose  the  ten-year  stratum  now 
being  laid  would  be  classed  as  the  serene  period 
of  agriculture  and  golf. 

In  1890,  Chicago  was  a  mining  camp,  five 
stories  high.  It  was  owned  by  the  gamblers. 
What  I  seem  to  remember  most  clearly  of  that 
all-night  and  wide-open  time  is  that  the  minor 
courts  were  controlled  by  agents  of  crime.  The 
poor  man,  unprotected  by  an  alderman,  was 
helpless  when  the  vultures  swooped  down  on 
him.  No  wonder  we  had  anarchists. 

I  knew  my  Chicago  twenty-five  years  ago, 
and  it  was  some  laboratory!  New  England  still 
regards  it  as  an  area  unrelated  to  the  study  of 
botany,  but  the  Chicago  of  to-day,  as  compared 
with  the  Gomorrah  of  World's  Fair  year,  is  a 
cross-section  of  the  millennium. 

The  courts  are  beyond  the  reach  of  the  crooks. 


LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY       57 

The  night  life  consists  mostly  of  going  to  one's 
room  and  reading  a  book.  The  voters  want 
good  government,  whether  they  get  it  all  the 
time  or  not. 

I  am  not  disposed  to  brag  of  the  spindly  sky 
scrapers,  but  it  is  worth  noting  that  Chicago,  by 
persistent  and  conscious  effort,  has  made  Michi 
gan  Boulevard  one  of  the  show  streets  of  the 
world,  and  is  going  ahead  with  big  plans  for 
cleansing  and  beautifying  a  huge  and  unwieldy 
town. 

Looking  back  from  fifty,  it  seems  that  every 
year  has  been  kicked  full  of  dust  by  our  efforts 
to  improve  physical  conditions. 

The  times  show  an  easier  standard  of  morals 
and,  strangely  enough,  a  better  average  of  be 
haviour.  People  are  dancing,  more  and  drink 
ing  less.  It  is  no  longer  sinful  to  play  cards  or 
go  to  the  theatre,  which  looks  ominous  to  some 
of  the  old-timers,  but  while  we  have  been  yield 
ing  to  the  lure  of  bridge  and  musical  comedy  we 
have  evened  up  the  score  by  forgetting  all  about 
original  sin,  predestination,  and  babies  being 
toasted  on  pitchforks. 

We  discuss  in  books  and  portray  on  the  stage 
the  secrets  of  anatomy,  physiology,  and  hygiene. 
Young  women  with  tortoise-shell  glasses  gather 


58  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

around  a  samovar  and  tackle  topics  which  a 
man  would  have  been  afraid  to  mention  to  his 
doctor  thirty  years  ago.  And  I  am  sure  that  in 
the  glad  Victorian  days  of  what-nots  and  hair 
cloth  furniture  the  spooning  couple  never  got 
around  to  eugenics. 

Let  us  not  worry.  It  is  a  cleaner,  bolder, 
more  candid,  less  hypocritical  world  than  it  was 
in  the  days  of  the  yappy  seventies. 

The  most  popular  occupation  seems  to  be 
fighting  some  kind  of  disease.  Every  active 
man  gives  part  of  his  time  to  outside  work  which 
is  quite  unselfish.  The  fact  that  many  appeals 
are  being  made  and  that  you  and  I  respond  to 
them,  as  people  have  never  got  together  before, 
ought  to  encourage  us  to  believe  that  we  are  not 
as  depraved  as  our  relatives  believe  us  to  be. 

Our  country's  unselfish  work  in  the  Philip 
pines,  Porto  Rico,  Cuba,  and  Panama  has  been 
one  of  the  amazing  and  soul-warming  exhibits 
of  our  time.  Several  nations  calling  themselves 
highly  civilized,  and  regarding  Americans  as 
mercenary  Yankee  traders,  did  not  believe  that 
a  powerful  Government  could  deal  with  a  hum 
ble  and  unprotected  race  except  for  purposes  of 
exploitation.  Even  now  they  think  there  is  a 
catch  or  a  trick  somewhere  and  that  we  are  nurs- 


LOOKING  BACK  FROM  FIFTY       59 

ing  in  the  background  some  vast  scheme  for 
making  money  out  of  our  little  black  and  brown 
brothers.  Uncle  Sam  made  up  as  Santa  Glaus 
does  not  strike  them  as  a  convincing  characteri 
zation. 

The  trouble  is,  they  do  not  know  us.  While 
we  were  pulling  for  France  and  Great  Britain 
and  the  perpetuation  of  democracy,  we  were 
supposed  to  be  getting  rich  making  shrapnel. 
And  yet,  999  out  of  every  1,000  Americans 
wouldn't  know  shrapnel  from  scrapple  if  they 
saw  it  in  a  show  window. 

I  have  put  in  most  of  my  fifty  years  getting 
acquainted  with  my  fellow  citizens.  I  have 
seen  them  at  home  and  abroad,  scattered  and 
bunched.  A  good  many  of  them  are  provincial, 
especially  congressmen,  and  a  lot  more  have 
been  fed  on  misinformation;  but,  take  them  as 
they  run,  they  are  kindly  and  fair-minded  and 
always  trying  to  work  back  to  the  main  road. 

There  is  more  brotherhood  of  man  at  large 
than  ever  before.  That  is  my  conclusion,  look 
ing  back  from  fifty — war  or  no  war. 


DANCING 

ONCE  in  a  while  you  meet  a  man  so 
great  that  he  can  live  down  the  repu 
tation  of  being  a  lovely  dancer. 

A  lovely  dancer  is  one  who  can  lift  a  fair- 
sized  woman  simply  by  resting  his  hand  lightly 
on  the  region  of  her  vertebrae. 

His  partner  pays  him  the  most  sincere  compli 
ment  included  in  the  catalogue  of  modern  chiv 
alry  when  she  says  that  while  dancing  with  him 
she  seems  to  be  floating  in  the  air. 

A  lot  of  nice  fellows  in  the  U.  S.  A.  would  be 
successful  if  they  could  wear  their  pumps  in  the 
daytime.  The  great  mistake  they  make  is  in 
changing  from  evening  clothes  to  street  clothes. 
The  minute  they  get  out  of  the  range  of  a  throb 
bing  orchestra  they  begin  to  bleach,  fade  away 
and  shrivel  to  the  relative  unimportance  of  a 
goldfish  floating  on  its  back. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  captain  of  industry 
whose  feet  are  not  mates  should  go  behind  the 

60 


DANCING  61 

palms  at  8:30  p.  M.  whenever  the  wife  throws  a 
dinner  dance.  Moral  grandeur  has  no  rating 
in  a  ballroom.  Take  all  the  heavy-weights  of 
history  and  put  them  out  on  a  waxed  floor  and 
they  would  be  terror-stricken  at  the  approach 
of  a  pug-nosed  flapper. 

I  have  seen  the  Holy  Rollers  out  in  the  coun 
try  sway  and  chant  themselves  into  frothing 
hysteria.  I  have  seen  the  revolving  dervishes 
of  Turkey  wind  themselves  up  until  they  were 
quivering  with  a  mechanical  sort  of  ecstasy.  I 
have  seen  the  aborigines  of  North  America  re 
vert  to  type  and  hotfoot  in  a  circle  until  they 
were  yowling  maniacs. 

But  no  one  ever  observed  mortals  more 
glassy-eyed,  giggling,  gibbering,  and  generally 
locoed  with  artificial  bliss  than  a  bunch  of  our 
best  people  while  under  the  influence  of  this 
year's  dance  music. 

Along  about  9  P.  M.  they  drag  themselves 
wearily  to  the  centre  of  the  jazz-pit  and  their 
drooping  demeanour  seems  to  indicate:  "This  is 
a  tough  ordeal,  but  probably  we  will  have  to  go 
through  with  it." 

At  3  A.  M.  they  are  writhing  like  angleworms 
and  squealing  for  encores. 

They  never  quit.     The  acrobatic  saturnalia 


62  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

continues  until  the  snare-drummer  wears  out  his 
sticks. 

Then  a  janitor,  or  someone,  pushes  them  out 
and  locks  up. 

Yes,  you  are  right,  Edith.  If  the  writer  knew 
how  to  dance,  the  whole  thing  might  look  dif 
ferent. 


MUSICAL  COMEDY 

WHEN  the  first  piano  was  built  the 
owner  needed  something  to  put  on 
top  of  the  piano,  so  the  popular  song 
and  the  light  opera  were  invented.  As  the 
musical  taste  of  succeeding  buyers  developed 
and  improved,  light  opera  became  lighter  and 
lighter  until  at  last  they  had  to  weight  it  down 
to  keep  it  on  the  piano.  There  came  a  time 
when  the  manufacturers  were  prohibited  under 
the  Pure  Food  Law  from  using  the  opera  label. 
They  had  to  call  the  output  something  or 
other,  so  they  compromised  on  "musical 
comedy." 

Musical  comedy  has  done  a  great  deal  for  our 
fair  land.  It  has  depopulated  the  laundries, 
reduced  the  swollen  fortunes  of  Pittsburgh,  and 
bridged  the  social  chasm  between  the  honest 
working  girl  and  the  pallid  offspring  of  the  cap 
tain  of  industry. 

It  has  taught  William  Shakespeare  how  to 
take  a  joke.  It  has  developed  a  colony  of 

63 


64  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

angels  and  incidentally  it  has  given  the  foot- 
power  piano  an  excuse  for  being. 

A  good  musical  comedy  consists  largely  of 
disorderly  conduct  occasionally  interrupted  by 
talk.  The  man  who  provides  the  interruptions 
is  called  the  librettist.  I  would  advise  any  man 
who  hasn't  the  nerve  to  be  a  foot-pad  or  is  too 
large  to  get  through  a  transom,  to  become  a 
librettist. 

I'd  rather  be  a  burglar  than  the  man  who  writes  the 

book, 
For    the    burglar    is    anonymous — a    self-concealing 

crook ; 
When  they  catch  him  with  the  goods  he  merely  does 

a  term  in  jail, 
While  the  author  has  to  stand  and  take  a  roast  from 

Alan  Dale. 

I  wrote  this  years  ago,  but  it  is  still  true. 

The  so-called  music  of  musical  comedy  must 
be  the  kind  that  any  messenger  boy  can  learn  to 
whistle  after  hearing  it  twice.  At  the  same  time 
it  must  satisfy  the  tall-browed  critic  who  was 
brought  up  on  Tschaikowski  and  Bach.  As  for 
the  dialogue,  it  must  be  guaranteed  to  wring 
boisterous  laughter  from  the  three-dollar  patron 
who  has  a  facial  angle  of  thirty  degrees,  and  a 
cerebellum  about  the  size  of  an  olive;  also  it 


MUSICAL  COMEDY  65 

must  have  sufficient  literary  quality  and  subtle 
humour  to  please  the  dead-head  who  is  sitting  in 
the  fourth  row  with  a  hammer  in  one  hand  and 
a  javelin  in  the  other. 

Every  young  man  who  goes  into  the  libretto 
business  thinks  he  is  going  to  revolutionize  the 
American  stage.  He  is  going  to  begin  where 
W.  S.  Gilbert  left  off.  He  gets  a  fountain  pen, 
a  pad  of  paper,  and  a  few  pounds  of  opiate,  and 
then  he  dreams  it  all  out.  He  is  going  to  write 
a  musical  play  with  a  consistent  and  closely 
connected  plot,  an  abundance  of  sprightly  hu 
mour  and  nothing  said  or  done  that  would 
bring  the  blush  of  shame  to  the  cheek  of  the 
most  sensitive  manager. 

His  getaway  is  usually  very  promising.  By 
way  of  novelty  he  has  an  opening  chorus.  A 
lot  of  people  are  standing  around  in  aimless 
groups  there  in  the  green  sunshine.  Occasionally 
the  green  sunshine  changes  to  amber.  They  tell 
all  about  themselves  and  explain  their  emotions. 
Then  the  principals  begin  coming  on  and  tell 
why  they  are  present,  and  the  wedding  is  an 
nounced  and  the  people  in  front  begin  to  get  a 
faint  outline  of  plot.  This  goes  on  for  about 
ten  minutes  until  a  beautiful  blonde,  who  was 
educated  for  grand  opera  and  then  changed  her 


66  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

mind,  suddenly  says,  apropos  of  nothing  in 
particular,  "Oh,  I  am  so  happy  to-day  I  could 
sing  my  favourite  song,  'Won't  you  be  my  lit 
tle  gum-drop?' ' 

That  is  what  is  known  as  a  "music  cue." 
That  is  where  the  author  goes  into  the  side 
pocket  and  the  producer  becomes  the  whole 
proposition. 

First  the  beautiful  blonde  sings  it  all  by  her 
self.  Then  the  beautiful  tenor  with  talcum 
powder  all  over  his  face  comes  out  and  helps 
her.  Then  the  refined  comedian,  recently  gradu 
ated  from  vaudeville,  breaks  in  and  they  do  the 
gum-drop  number  as  a  trio.  The  soubrette  ar 
rives,  merely  by  accident,  and  the  song  regard 
ing  the  gum-drop  now  becomes  a  quartette. 
Then  eight  young  ladies  in  Spanish  costumes 
come  out  and  sing  it,  introducing  a  dance.  Then 
eight  young  ladies  in  white  are  lowered  from  the 
flies  and  they  sing  it  while  hanging  in  the  air. 
Then  the  lights  are  turned  out  and  the  entire 
company  sings  it  in  the  moonlight.  Then  the 
sunshine  is  turned  on  again  and  all  sing  it  by 
daylight. 

The  man  who  leads  the  orchestra  is  a  mind- 
reader.  He  knows  that  the  public  wants  more 
verses  of  the  gum-drop  song  whether  it  ap- 


MUSICAL  COMEDY  67 

plauds  or  not.  This  is  what  is  known  as  the 
"noiseless  encore."  The  reason  he  is  so  willing 
to  respond  to  encores  is  that  he  wrote  the  song. 

At  last,  after  the  entire  company  has  sung  and 
danced  itself  into  a  state  of  staggering  exhaus 
tion,  and  even  the  iron-handed  ushers  have  be 
come  satiated,  the  whole  covey  disappears  and 
that  grand  old  annoyance  who  shows  up  in 
every  musical  play,  the  bride's  father,  wanders 
on  the  stage  and  tries  to  collect  the  shattered 
fragments  of  plot.  Of  course  nobody  pays  any 
attention  to  him.  All  the  people  in  front  are 
lying  back  limp  and  groggy,  trying  to  recover 
from  the  excitement  of  that  gum-drop  affair. 
They  have  forgotten  all  about  the  fragment  of 
"story"  that  showed  up  a  half  hour  before. 
Father,  however,  starts  in  to  remind  the  audi 
ence  of  the  wedding  day  and  the  bride  and  the 
birth-mark  and  the  picture  in  the  locket  and 
the  other  essentials,  and  just  about  the  time  he 
is  getting  a  foothold  the  Egyptian  dancers  glide 
on  and  everything  is  once  more  floating  upside 
down  in  the  air.  The  morning  newspapers  say 
that  the  plot  did  not  seem  to  be  well  sustained. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  attacking 
musical  comedy.  It  has  helped  a  great  many 
people  who  belong  in  trolley  cars  to  ride  in 


68  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

motor  cars.  It  provides  mental  relaxation  for 
the  tired  business  man  who  doesn't  want  to 
think.  Probably  if  he  ever  stopped  to  think,  he 
would  get  up  and  go  out. 

Musical  comedy  has  educated  the  public. 
When  it  was  first  introduced  the  American 
people  were  devoted  to  such  simple  and  old- 
fashioned  melodies  as  "Roll  On,  Silvery  Moon/' 
'Then  You'll  Remember  Me,"  "When  the 
Corn  is  Waving,  Annie,  Dear,"  and  'The 
Gypsy's  Warning."  The  campaign  of  educa 
tion  has  been  going  on  for  years  and  now  we 
have  worked  up  to  a  midnight  show  on  a  roof, 
with  songs  which  would  be  suppressed  by  the 
police  if  the  police  could  fathom  the  signifi 
cance  of  the  double  entendre. 

It  is  said  that  every  man  in  the  world  thinks 
he  can  edit  a  newspaper,  manage  a  hotel  and 
write  a  comic  opera.  I  have  been  in  the  news 
paper  business  and  I  have  gone  against  operas 
that  were  trying  to  be  comic.  I  am  still  sure 
that  I  can  manage  a  hotel. 


ARRANGERS 

YOU  can  hide  away  from  your  enemies, 
but  your  friends  will  get  you. 
No  man  ever  woke  up  in  the  morning 
with  a  case  of  side-way  jumps  and  said,  "My 
enemies  did  this  to  me." 

Suggested  marking  for  a  headstone:  "He 
was  the  best-liked  man  in  his  class  at  the  var 
sity  and  wherever  he  went  he  was  royally  enter 
tained." 

The  social  outcast  may  have  regrets  but  he 
never  has  the  gout. 

Our  beloved  Riley  of  Indiana  once  in  a  while 
consented  to  recite  his  poems  in  public.  He  had 
a  genius  for  character  acting.  As  a  story 
teller  he  was  delightful  beyond  all  description. 
Whenever  he  appeared  on  a  rostrum,  the  audi 
torium  was  jammed  with  well-dressed  people 
leaning  forward.  His  readings  brought  him 
many  dollars  and  gave  happiness  to  the  kind  of 
"folks"  for  whom  he  had  an  affection.  And 
yet,  for  many  years,  he  refused  to  go  on  tour. 

69 


70  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

"If  I  could  slip  into  a  town,"  he  would  explain, 
"and  detour  to  the  hotel  and  brush  up,  and  then 
wander  around  and  look  in  the  windows,  and 
get  a  snack  and  go  over  to  the  hall  and  deliver 
the  show,  and  then  drift  back  to  the  hotel  and 
go  to  bed,  I  wouldn't  mind  the  trouping.  The 
trouble  is,  in  every  town  the  arrangers  get  hold 
of  me.  They  are  the  nicest  people  in  the  world 
and  they  are  bursting  with  unselfish  designs. 
They  surround  me  with  committees  and  exhibit 
me.  They  put  me  into  clammy  spare  bedrooms 
and  tempt  me  with  huge  portions  of  rich  food. 
They  keep  me  up  at  night.  They  crowd  in  on 
me  and  talk  to  me  about  the  pieces  I  have  writ 
ten.  They  smother  me  with  kindness.  I  never 
have  discovered  any  tactful  method  of  convinc 
ing  them  that  I  would  like  to  be  let  alone.  After 
enduring  all  forms  of  hospitality,  I  have  learned 
that  to  escape  the  horrors  of  being  entertained, 
I  must  remain  in  quarantine." 

Popularity  and  pepsin  go  hand  in  hand  under 
the  electric  lights.  Everybody  is  trying  to  do 
something  for  the  favoured  children  of  fortune 
who  are  already  loaded  down  with  Christmas 
presents. 

Self-appointed  committees  are  all  the  time 
assigning  to  themselves  picturesque  duties  to  be 


ARRANGERS  71 

performed  on  high  platforms.  The  helpless 
spectators  and  victims  are  never  consulted  in 
advance. 

Too  many  fixers  are  trying  to  regulate  the 
wheels  of  Destiny  and  make  the  solar  system  an 
auxiliary  to  some  local  club  with  a  membership 
of  about  150. 

While  the  first-born  is  chewing  on  rubber  and 
inspecting  the  chandelier,  the  arrangers  in  the 
next  room  are  plotting  to  make  him  an  attorney 
at  law,  although  the  star  under  which  he  was 
born  lights  the  way  to  a  long  and  useful  career 
as  train-caller. 

Women  of  high  voltage  are  especially  keen  as 
arrangers.  The  married  woman  decides  that 
Herbert,  her  husband's  bachelor  friend  (with 
the  false  eyebrows),  is  just  the  man  for  Ella, 
a  hold-over  from  the  puff-sleeve  period.  So 
she  invites  the  two  case-hardened  waifs  out  for 
the  week-end  and  issues  secret  orders  that  when 
ever  Herb  and  Ella  can  be  assembled  together 
on  one  settee,  then  all  the  others  are  to  run 
away  and  leave  them.  And  yet  you  may  have 
read  in  a  book  somewhere  that  woman  is  man's 
best  friend! 

Just  when  you  get  your  programme  all  blocked 
out,  some  promoter  comes  along  with  a  blue 


72  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

pencil  and  begins  to  edit — because  he  likes  you. 
Always  with  the  best  of  intentions.  The  road 
to  hell  is  paved  with  good  intentions  and  the 
main  contract  has  been  sub-let  in  a  thousand 
different  directions. 

The  arrangers  have  put  us  on  a  diet,  hid  the 
cocktail  shaker  and  spanked  the  big-eyed  vamp 
of  the  movies.  They  lay  back  the  covers  for  us 
every  evening  at  11:15.  Before  you  bust  over 
on  Sunday,  find  out  what  instructions  the  police 
have  received  from  the  arrangers. 

Nearly  everything  is  being  done  for  us.  Also 
to  us.  The  wails  of  the  sinful  minority  are 
drowned  by  the  hallelujahs  of  those  who  never 
enjoyed  the  privilege  of  being  corrupted.  At 
least,  the  unhappy  ones  have  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  before  long  they  will  be  as  stand 
ardized  as  anything  that  can  be  purchased  f.  o.  b. 
Detroit. 


VACATIONS 

WHEN  the  days  are  long,  get  ready  to 
file  off  the  ball  and  chain. 
Wait  until  the  asters  are  blooming 
and  then,  no  matter  where  you  are,  go  some 
where  else.     Only  an  oyster  remains  forever  at 
the  old  homestead. 

If  the  all-wise  Arranger  had  meant  for  you  to 
look  out  of  the  same  window  all  the  time,  he 
wouldn't  have  given  you  legs. 

The  planet  you  are  now  visiting  may  be  the 
only  one  you  ever  see.  Even  if  you  get  a  trans 
fer,  the  next  one  may  not  have  any  Grand  Can 
yon  or  Niagara  Falls. 

Move  around  before  the  ivy  begins  to  climb 
up  your  legs. 

It  is  true  that  a  rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss, 
but  it  gets  rid  of  the  rough  corners  and  takes  on 
a  lovely  polish.  Besides,  who  wants  to  be  cov 
ered  with  moss? 

Go  on  a  journey  every  year  so  that  you  may 
jolt  out  of  your  brittle  head-piece  the  notion  that 

73 


74  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

our  home  township  is  the  steering-gear  of  the 
universe. 

Some  hermits  are  learned,  but  only  the  trav 
ellers  are  wise. 

If  you  have  earned  a  vacation,  take  it.  The 
time  has  come  to  exchange  your  cold  currency 
for  some  new  sensations.  You  are  due  to  ac 
cept  a  reward  for  all  the  years  of  sacrifice  and 
denial.  But  you  worry.  If  you  splurge  around 
and  have  a  good  time,  maybe  the  children  will 
not  have  all  the  funds  they  need,  fifteen  years 
hence,  to  keep  them  in  red  touring  cars  and 
squirrel  coats. 

You  are  afraid  to  make  a  will  reading  as  fol 
lows: 
Dear  Offsprings: 

Go  out  and  get  it — the  same  as  I  did. 

Think  of  the  thousands  of  worthy  old  people 
now  penned  up  at  home  who  ought  to  be  scoot 
ing  about  in  henrys  and  lake  steamers  and  Pull 
man  cars,  rounding  out  the  long  day  of  toil  with 
a  late  afternoon  of  gleeful  enjoyment!  It 
wouldn't  cost  them  a  cent.  The  heirs  would 
pay  all  the  bills. 

We  need  in  this  country  many  Night  Schools 
for  Old  People.  It  is  time  to  declare  for  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  the  passing  generation. 


VACATIONS  75 

The  world  and  the  fullness  thereof  do  not  be 
long  entirely  to  the  flapper  with  the  concealed 
ears  and  the  dancing  tadpole  whose  belt-line  is 
just  below  the  shoulder-blades. 

Take  your  vacations  while  you  can  get  them. 
Eventually  you  may  not  be  able  to  name  the 
spots  you  are  going  to  visit  next. 


BABIES 

SOMEONE  said:  "The  hand  that  rocks  the 
cradle  rules  the  world."  Now  revised 
to  read:  'The  hand  that  rocks  the  cra 
dle  should  be  amputated." 

The  human  race  is,  according  to  a  guess  by 
H.  G.  Wells,  75,000  years  old,  and  only  in  the 
last  25  years  has  any  one  known  how  to  welcome 
a  baby  and  take  care  of  it  All  those  who  sur 
vived  during  the  preceding  74,975  years  were 
just  plain  lucky. 

The  first  impression  gained  by  a  baby  of  the 
nineteenth  century  must  have  been  that  Earth  is 
inhabited  by  elderly  people,  all  females  except 
one  and  all  wearing  spectacles. 

The  newly  arrived  of  to-day  probably  de 
cides  that  the  world  is  walled  with  white,  tinc 
tured  with  anaesthetics,  and  peopled  by  efficient 
internes  and  calm  nurses. 

The  cold  edicts  of  science  have  converted  a 
social  event  into  a  private  business  transaction. 

We  know  now  that  the  multitude  of  old- 
76 


BABIES  77 

fashioned  mothers  decorating  the  pages  of  do 
mestic  history  were  either  misinformed  or 
blindly  ignorant. 

Even  a  very  young  child  learned  that  if  it 
yowled  enough  it  would  be  taken  on  an  exciting 
journey  from  room  to  room  and  have  a  special 
audience  with  the  canary  and  be  permitted  to 
listen  to  the  latest  sentimental  ballads. 

Consider  the  case  of  a  lately  arrived  infant. 
After  it  had  come  to  believe  that  life  under  the 
new  management  consisted  of  riding  a  cock 
horse  to  Banbury  Cross,  of  being  thrown  up — 
up — almost  to  the  ceiling  and  then  being  caught 
safely  on  the  breathless  descent;  of  being  jolted 
into  convulsive  giggles  by  large  dependable 
hands  smelling  of  tobacco — after  all  these  wild 
raptures,  how  about  the  boredom  of  lying  flat 
on  the  back  and  looking  at  the  lighting  fixtures? 

When  one  might  relieve  ennui  merely  by  lift 
ing  a  protest,  why  suffer  in  loneliness?  Thus 
reasoned  the  tiny  tots  of  fifty  years  ago. 

It  is  different  now.  A  wide  conspiracy  has 
been  framed  against  the  nestling.  Hysterical 
adults  who  have  the  uncontrollable  impulse  to 
churn  every  baby  in  order  to  hear  it  gurgle,  are 
barred  from  the  nursery. 

Isn't  it  amazing?     Think  of  the  millions  of 


78  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

miles  of  walking  the  floor  that  might  have  been 
saved  if  the  goose-minded  parents  of  former 
generations  had  known  that  fourteen  pounds  of 
infancy  will  deliberately  put  something  over  on 
300  pounds  of  parenthood! 

When  the  time-table  baby  hits  the  crib  at 
eventide,  it  is  in  for  the  night.  It  no  longer  has 
the  kingly  privilege  of  waking  up  at  2  A.  M.  and 
demanding  a  special  vaudeville  performance. 
At  least,  so  we  are  told. 

Also,  between  times  of  being  weighed  and  in 
spected,  it  is  cured  and  hardened  in  icy  sleeping- 
porches.  Grandmothers  raise  feeble  protests 
but  find  themselves  dusted  out  of  the  way  by 
modern  methods. 

Recent  babies  may  become  physically  fit  un 
der  these  Dempsey  training  rules,  but  they 
don't  have  as  much  fun  as  we  had,  do  they? 


TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP 

CT  us  precede  our  moaning  with  a  confes 
sion: 
There  never  was  a  time  since  the  first 
peep  o'  dawn  when  things  were  right. 

Also,  before  the  lamentation  is  formally 
inaugurated,  let  it  be  admitted  that  when  the 
arteries  and  enthusiasms  begin  to  harden,  and 
the  joints  to  creak,  and  the  diet  list  is  more  im 
portant  than  the  dance  programme,  judgment  is 
inclined  to  warp  at  the  edges;  and  charity,  in 
stead  of  falling  like  the  gentle  dew  from  heaven, 
has  to  be  applied  with  a  force  pump. 

This  is  no  attempt  to  give  a  clean  bill  to  the 
crabbed  elders.  Let  us  even  admit  that  a  preju 
diced  statement  is  about  to  be  made  to  a  preju 
diced  jury.  Mark  off  forty  per  cent,  on  ac 
count  of  emotional  astigmatism.  And  then, 
with  your  hand  on  your  heart,  speak  up  and  tell 
us  if  you  ever  saw  the  beat  of  the  young  people 
of  to-day. 

By   "young  people"   meaning,   broadly   and 

79 


80  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

generally,  all  immature  specimens  between  the 
age  of  orange  juice  alternating  with  milk  and 
that  hazy  borderland  of  matrimony  producing 
principally  cheek-to-cheek  dancing  and  ciga 
rettes. 

We  have  to  take  the  very  young  ones  into  the 
picture  because  they  are  the  chief  disillusionizes 
of  the  present  hard-boiled  times.  They  know 
there  isn't  any  stork  before  the  stork  itself  is  a 
half-block  away  from  the  house. 

And,  if  you  want  to  get  a  dirty  look,  just  tell 
any  two-year-older  that  the  doctor  brought  him 
in  a  satchel! 

Most  of  the  amazing  phenomena  are  to  be 
detected  among  the  fledglings  who  cause  ex 
pense  accounts.  From  the  time  of  the  first  flut 
tering  desire  to  be  in  the  movies  up  to  the 
college  perihelion,  when  life  is  a  succession  of 
house  parties,  the  juniors  can  move  in  more  di 
rections  at  the  same  time  and  put  more  parents 
on  the  mat  (both  shoulders  touching)  than  ever 
before  in  the  history  of  the  universe. 

We  are  not  setting  in  to  scold  the  juveniles. 
They  don't  belong  to  us  and  we  wouldn't  get 
any  further  with  our  noisy  reprimands  than  if 
we  were  the  legal  guardians  of  the  aforesaid 
juveniles. 


TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP         81 

What  could  be  more  futile  than  raving  be 
cause  town  cars  have  replaced  side-bar  buggies, 
and  the  toddle  has  pushed  the  polka  into  a  cor 
ner,  and  noisy  Bill,  aged  eleven  and  wearing  a 
football  suit,  starts  in  just  eight  miles  ahead  of 
where  little  Rollo  left  off? 

This  is  no  broadside  denunciation  of  the  child 
wonders  who  congest  every  Main  Street  in 
America.  It  is  simply  a  gasp  of  wonderment. 

To  lose  faith  in  all  boys  and  girls  between 
the  ages  of  twelve  and  twenty-two  would  be  to 
admit  that  the  genus  homo  has  come  to  a  bad 
finish,  and  that  the  experiment  of  the  new  re 
public  has  diminuendoed  into  a  fiasco. 

The  young  people  inherited  all  of  the  quali 
ties  so  often  criticized.  A  new  situation  has 
arisen  because  these  hereditary  qualities  have 
been  given  unexpected  outlets  and  opportuni 
ties.  Be  careful,  and  don't  put  too  much  blame 
on  the  lads  and  lassies. 

Why  take  unnecessary  risks?  Already  we 
have  earned  their  scorn.  Why  dig  ourselves 
deeper  into  the  degradation  which  mires  down 
every  adult  above  the  age  of  forty? 

Not  to  be  young  nowadays  is  somewhere  be 
tween  a  misdemeanour  and  a  crime. 

Even  the  snow-whites,  who  should  be  sitting 


82  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

with  folded  hands,  awaiting  the  final  summons, 
are  running  around  in  knickerbockers  and  short 
skirts,  and  fooling  nobody  except  themselves. 

You  cannot  turn  back  the  hands  of  the  clock 
by  putting  on  a  gay  hatband.  Either  you  are 
young  and  have  inherited  the  earth  or  else  you 
are  effete,  and  are  being  tolerated  as  a  custom 
ary  part  of  the  background. 

In  England  they  are  asking,  even  as  we  are 
asking  over  here,  not  what  may  be  done  with 
the  children,  but  what  are  the  children  going  to 
do  with  and  to  us. 

Just  think!  In  placid  England,  where  misses 
let  the  hair  hang  free  and  are  guarded  by  gov 
ernesses  until  they  are  over  six  feet  tall,  and 
where  pale  lads,  attired  mostly  in  Eton  collars, 
regard  bread  and  jam  as  somewhat  of  a  lark — 
in  conservative  England,  where  minors  still  be 
lieve  in  fairies  and  wait  expectantly  for  the 
Christmas  pantomime,  there  is  a  nation-wide 
agitation  against  the  swank  and  swagger  and 
mutinous  exploits  of  the  whole  nursery  output. 
The  tender  age  has  toughened  up  until  you 
can't  put  a  dent  in  it. 

It  is  reported  on  good  authority  that  flappers 
of  eminent  lineage  call  their  dancing  partners 
"old  bean/'  while '  young  gentlemen  not  yet 


TO-DAY  S  AMAZING  CROP         83 

ready  for  Oxford  listen  to  the  mater  with  Hi- 
concealed  annoyance,  and  then  say  tkPooh!rr — 
just  like  that.  Therefore  letters  are  being  writ 
ten  to  the  'Times/'  and  there  is  a  feeling  that 
some  action  should  be  taken. 

Without  recurring  to  our  Yankee  habit  of 
boasting,  let  it  be  proclaimed  that  the  elders  of 
Great  Britain  who  think  that  they  are  up 
against  a  sassy  outfit  haven't  been  anywhere  and 
haven't  seen  anything, 

As  a  novel  international  sporting  proposition, 
why  not  have  a  bench  show  and  exhibit  the 
swankiest  products  of  the  two  English-speaking 
nations?  \\Tien  it  comes  to  matching  up  eight 
een-year-old  roues  and  nineteen-year-old  vamps. 
the  odds  will  be  three  to  one  that  our  beloved 
country  will  make  a  clean  sweep  of  blue  ribbons. 

In  England  there  are  many  tremors  and  much 
head-shaking  because  the  youngsters  are  so  dif 
ferent  from  those  of  the  Victorian  period.  In 
the  L'.  S.  A.,  the  children  were  not  so  blamed 
Victorian,  even  when  the  good  queen  was  alive. 
As  far  back  as  we  can  remember,  the  average 
homegrown  lambkin  had  a  tremendous  lead  over 
any  foreign  competitor  in  the  matters  of  fluent 
vocabulary,  argumentative  skill,  aplomb,  off 
hand  confidence,  ability  to  penetrate  the  thin 


84  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

disguises  of  pretentious  adults,  premature  love 
entanglements,  positive  preferences  as  to  food 
and  drink,  slavish  devotion  to  the  modes  of  the 
moment  (especially  as  affecting  the  hair),  poign 
ant  grief  over  inability  to  adjust  one's  self  to 
an  unsympathetic  and  unresponsive  world,  half- 
concealed  disappointment  as  to  the  social  stand 
ing  and  immediate  prospects  of  most  important 
relatives,  spirit  of  revolt  against  arbitrary  enact 
ments  which  have  no  purpose  except  to  hamper 
the  flight  of  genius — to  say  nothing  of  that  su 
perb  and  cultivated  quality  of 'in  difference  which 
permits  one  to  listen  without  hearing  anything. 

It  is  not  contended  that  the  new  brood  has 
invented  any  characteristics.  They  have  taken 
the  old  ones  and  developed  them,  not  only  to 
the  nth  degree  but  away  beyond  that — say  to. 
the  &c  mark. 

Our  present  crop  is  everything  that  the  ju 
nior  population  of  the  last  century  hoped  to  be. 

The  emancipation  of  woman  is  no  more  of  an 
accomplished  fact  than  the  general  unshackling 
of  the  heirs. 

Which  doesn't  necessarily  signify  that  the 
whole  social  organization  is  going  to  the  bow 
wows.  Perhaps  it  is  all  for  the  best  that  the 
bantlings  should  jump  in  and  take  advantage  of 


TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP          85 

the  new  freedom.  It  may  be  that  they  know, 
better  than  the  old  people,  how  to  regulate  their 
amusements,  dietary  arrangements,  nocturnal 
activities,  manners,  social  connections,  and  ex 
penditures. 

Are  we  at  all  mistaken  in  assuming  that  a 
revolution  has  been  effected? 

Have  we  any  homes  in  which  the  occupants 
who  are  less  than  twenty  years  of  age  designate 
the  hour  at  which  breakfast  shall  be  served? 

When  the  young  people  have  a  party,  who 
finally  fixes  the  hour  at  which  the  festivities  are 
to  close? 

When  the  junior  drives  the  car,  does  he  ob 
serve  the  speed  limit  suggested  by  his  appre 
hensive  parents  or  just  go  as  he  doggone  pleases? 

Who  decides  as  to  the  style  and  cost  of  cos 
tumes  to  be  worn  by  minors? 

How  many  parental  edicts  can  withstand  a 
united  attack  by  the  offspring? 

Is  it  true  that  many  fathers  and  mothers  have 
given  up  trying  to  control  the  dancing  demons 
and  the  debutantes,  and  simply  stand  around 
wondering  what  is  going  to  happen  next? 

Isn't  it  a  fact  that  the  cherub  who  flatly  con 
tradicts  papa  or  mamma  has  a  fifty-fifty  chance 
of  getting  away  with  it? 


86  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

When  women  get  together  and  become  confi 
dential,  do  they  confess  that  they  are  retreating 
before  the  onward  march  of  the  conquering 
cubs? 

Isn't  it  a  fact  that  the  old  cardboard  motto, 
"Spare  the  rod  and  spoil  the  child/'  has  been 
moved  to  the  attic? 

Is  respect  for  parental  authority  selling  lower 
in  the  pools  than  ever  before? 

These  are  merely  a  few  questions,  but  after 
you  have  answered  them  truthfully,  admit  that 
there  have  been  some  bewildering  changes  since 
grandma  was  a  girl. 

Consider  the  case  of  a  society  queen  of  seven 
teen  who  is  looking  up  a  rest  cure;  or  take  a 
squint  at  the  world-weary  man  about  town, 
aged  eighteen,  to  whom  the  adoration  of  many 
women  has  become  a  vexation,  and  who  is  get 
ting  ready  to  cut  out  the  sex. 

Did  you  ever  try  to  account  for  the  abnormal 
sophistications  and  temperamental  tantrums  of 
these  very  recent  specimens? 

If  children  have  become  theatrical,  isn't  it 
because  all  of  us  have  put  a  premium  on  pre 
cocity?  We  have  stuffed  the  bambinos  with 
huge  portions  of  worldly  knowledge,  when  they 
should  have  been  rolling  their  hoops. 


TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP          87 

If  those  present  will  pardon  the  introduction 
of  the  first  person  singular,  I  will  try  to  illus 
trate  the  objective  point  by  recalling  the  privi 
leges  and  worldly  pleasures  of  the  very  young 
in  the  decade  connecting  1870  with  1880.  That 
isn't  so  long  ago,  in  years,  but  the  contrast  be 
tween  the  rising  generation  of  now  and  the  sim 
ple  urchins  of  then,  so  far  as  environment  and 
daily  experiences  are  concerned,  is  simply  a 
book  of  miracles. 

In  the  first  place,  the  young  ones  of  fifty  years 
ago  who  lived  in  the  small  towns  or  out  in  the 
farming  regions  were  really  in  the  country.  Not 
only  geographically,  but  removed  from  urban 
influences. 

Nowadays  we  haven't  any  out-in-the-country. 
The  telephone,  the  R.  F.  D.,  and  the  motor  car 
have  cooperated  to  cut  out  distance,  until  every 
villager  lives  just  across  the  street  from  the 
city  fellow,  and  every  farmer  lives  next  door  to 
the  villager.  Also,  there  is  the  radio. 

If  you  were  to  take  an  average  working  girl 
of  Boston,  a  girl  of  corresponding  social  import 
ance  from  a  small  city  in  Ohio,  and  the  daughter 
of  a  well-to-do  farmer  in  the  corn  belt,  and  stand 
the  three  of  them  in  a  row,  attired  in  their  most 
circus  regalias,  each  of  them  short-skirted  and 


88  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

high-heeled  and  hair-dressed  according  to  her 
own  specifications,  you  couldn't  tell  which  was 
which,  unless  the  country  girl  should  betray  her 
self  by  putting  on  too  much  face  powder. 

Political  economists  and  legislators  are  wor 
rying  because  there  is  a  steady  movement  of 
population  from  the  farming  regions  to  the 
cities.  But  the  real  phenomenon  is  the  citifica- 
tion  of  all  the  country  people.  You  can  sell 
more  gold  bricks  in  upper  Broadway  now  than 
you  can  in  Nebraska,  and  the  more  careful  stu 
dents  of  big-league  averages  are  the  boys  who 
loaf  around  the  grain  elevator.  Why  shouldn't 
the  farm  hand  be  as  slick  as  the  floorwalker? 
He  sees  the  same  moving  pictures. 

Let  us  get  back  to  the  boys  and  girls  of  fifty 
years  ago.  Except  for  a  few  silverspoon  favour 
ites  in  a  few  residence  avenues  in  a  few  cities, 
the  young  folks  were  not  acquainted  with  luxu 
ries.  Take  any  one  of  my  colleagues  as  a  fair 
sample.  In  the  summer  he  wore  as  few  clothes 
as  possible,  went  barefoot  until  the  meadows 
were  silvered  with  frost,  fished  in  tiny  "cricks," 
and  splashed  in  muddy  swimming  holes,  picked 
up  an  occasional  nickel  as  a  reward  for  unwill 
ing  labour,  and  came  to  regard  a  stick  of  candy 
or  a  bag  of  peanuts  as  a  kind  of  holiday  spree. 


TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP         89 

Rural  communities  were  not  organized  for 
recreation  and  entertainment  in  those  days.  No 
Chautauquas,  no  band  concerts,  no  intertown 
ball  leagues,  no  community  coliseums,  no  bas 
ket-ball  games,  no  high-school  track  meets. 

Far  apart  on  the  map  were  county  fairs.  One 
circus  a  summer  was  a  high  average.  Christ 
mas  tree  at  the  church,  firecrackers  on  the 
Fourth,  a  magic  lantern  show  at  the  town  hall — 
these  helped  to  add  an  occasional  high  spot  to 
the  monotonous  level  of  village  life. 

For  weeks  at  a  time  every  country  lane  and 
every  town  street  would  be  a  mush  of  mud  or  a 
jumble  of  frozen  ruts.  The  speed  rate  of  wheel 
vehicles  was  three  or  four  miles  an  hour.  The 
town  ten  miles  away  was  off  in  another  world. 
We  were  a  race  of  snails  and  lived  mostly  in  our 
shells.  As  nearly  as  I  can  recall,  the  adult 
population  devoted  all  summer  leisure  to  sitting 
on  porches  and  all  winter  leisure  to  sitting  by 
red-hot  stoves. 

In  cold  weather  we  boys  went  about  in  bob- 
tailed  suits  and  Eskimo  caps,  and  warped  boots 
which  failed  to  join  up  with  the  "pants."  The 
homemade  yarn  "comforter"  exploded  into 
bright  colours  at  each  end,  and  the  mittens  were 
connected  by  a  cord  hung  around  the  neck. 


90  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

Pocket  handkerchiefs  were  effeminate  and  unes 
sential — but  why  go  into  details? 

If  you  have  a  little  yell-leader  in  your  home 
and  you  tried  to  force  him  into  one  of  those  1875 
costumes,  you  would  have  to  use  chloroform. 

As  to  the  experiences  of  the  city  children  fifty 
years  ago,  the  writer  must  confess  a  profound 
ignorance,  but  he  understands  from  those  who 
were  there,  that  the  wildest  dissipation  of  the 
offspring  of  wealth  was  going  to  dancing  school, 
while  the  other  young  ones  were  not  so  different 
from  those  of  us  out  in  the  villages,  except  that 
they  could  look  at  the  Indians  in  front  of  cigar 
stores  and  take  an  occasional  ride  in  a  horse- 
car. 

Youngsters  everywhere  sought  their  own  sim 
ple  enjoyments,  and  not  much  was  provided. 
Nickel  libraries  were  concealed  in  haymows. 
The  boy  with  a  high  wheel  was  king  of  his  clan. 
Cinnamon  water  and  corn-silk  cigarettes  made 
up  the  full  programme  of  an  orgy. 

In  the  seventies,  school-teachers  were  trying 
to  explain  the  newly  invented  telephone.  Visi 
tors  returning  from  the  Centennial  at  Phila 
delphia  told  of  the  unbelievable  electric  light. 
Any  boy  fifteen  years  old  who  had  seen  the  in 
side  of  a  sleeping  car  was  a  world  traveller. 


TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP         91 

Newspapers  contained  only  rectangles  of  rou 
tine  news  and  political  editorials. 

\Ye  who  were  beginning  to  be  in  evidence 
fifty  years  ago  can  sit  back  now  and  realize  that 
the  greatest  pageant  of  progress  and  the  most 
terrific  conflict  of  forces  ever  witnessed  by  man 
have  been  staged  for  our  especial  benefit. 

Villages  have  grown  to  cities,  and  each  city 
has  become  a  metropolis.  The  material  devices 
which  transform  all  the  routine  of  life  have  been 
crowded  into  just  a  few  decades.  We  have  been 
kept  busy  for  a  half-century  providing  storage 
space  for  long-distance  'phones,  arc  lights,  giant 
locomotives,  talking  machines,  half-tone  print 
ing  processes,  mail-order  catalogues,  refined 
vaudeville,  the  merchandising  methods  of  great 
department  stores,  the  Bessemer  process  of 
making  steel,  skyscrapers,  motor  cars,  flying 
machines,  wireless  telegraphy,  golf,  the  germ 
theory  of  disease,  telepathy,  the  enfranchise 
ment  of  women,  and  so  on  for  a  couple  of  pages. 

Back  yonder  we  had  in  our  home  a  "what-not," 
a  couple  of  sea  shells,  a  melodeon,  some  hair 
cloth  furniture,  a  wood-burning  cook  stove,  and 
a  few  other  incidentals,  including  the  bootjack. 
Now,  every  modern  home  is  a  museum  of  won 
ders;  a  complex  demonstration  of  what  may  be 


92  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

achieved  by  the  ingenuity,  the  imagination,  and 
the  skill  of  the  cleverest  people  in  the  world. 
Just  around  the  corner  is  the  moving-picture 
theatre,  the  most  potent  single  influence  of  the 
century. 

Did  you  ever  stop  to  think  that  the  children 
now  coming  into  action  get  the  entire  accumula 
tion  of  fifty  years  at  one  dose,  and  take  it  with 
out  blinking? 

Just  as  a  Chinese  infant  easily  picks  up  a 
language  which  the  missionary  cannot  learn  in 
twenty  years,  so  the  absorbent  little  ones  now 
shouting  in  the  schoolyards  take  on,  without 
conscious  effort,  a  mighty  cargo,  which  includes 
the  whole  array  of  inventions,  the  results  of  the 
war,  the  complicated  developments  of  the  silent 
drama,  a  working  knowledge  of  sports  and  pas 
times,  a  list  of  the  modes  and  fashions,  all  the 
popular  songs  which  pour  out  of  the  phono 
graph,  and  the  myriad  facts  of  existence  which 
are  lined  up  along  motor  routes  and  trolley  lines. 

They  are  compelled  to  accept  all  of  our  fa 
vourite  marvels  as  commonplace  and  everyday 
incidentals.  They  listen  to  talking-machines 
and  look  at  airplanes,  and  scoot  around  in  auto 
mobiles,  and  talk  over  telephones,  and  then 
mildly  inquire,  "Why  not?"  The  cinema  drama 


TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP          93 

which  would  have  paralyzed  the  1875  boy  with 
amazement  and  delight,  they  regard  with  weary 
impatience  and  then  say:  "Step  on  it!  Go  into 
the  high!  Give  us  a  touch  of  speed!" 

Fifty  years  ago  we  played  two-old-cat,  and 
watched  the  trains  go  through.  Nowadays  they 
have  athletic  fields  and  gyms  and  leagues  and 
associations;  and  even  the  country  boys,  living 
away  out,  have  travelled  to  distant  cities  in 
horseless  carriages  and  laid  up  vast  stores  of 
erudition. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  rising  generation  is 
blase?  Is  it  strange  that  the  wealth  of  worldly 
knowledge  which  they  inherited,  all  in  a  lump, 
has  somewhat  gone  to  their  heads  and  given 
them  the  usual  conceits  and  pretensions  of  the 
newly  rich? 

Why  does  their  self-satisfaction  rasp  us? 
Probably  because  every  person  above  thirty- 
five  lives  somewhat  in  the  past,  and  our  kid  as 
sociates  have  a  grinning  contempt  for  all  those 
mementoes  of  bygone  days  which  we  regard 
with  solemn  reverence. 

The  pictures  which  we  hold  in  affection,  be 
cause  of  long-ago  association,  are  preposterous 
and  prehistoric  jokes  to  the  superior  adolescents. 
They  are  bored  stiff  when  we  begin  to  mumble 


94  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

about  the  belles  and  beaux  and  bright  dramatic 
lights  of  away  back  yonder,  and  their  forbear 
ance  is  taxed  beyond  endurance  when  some  tot 
tering  and  senile  wreck,  forty-two  or  forty- 
three  years  of  age,  tries  to  break  up  the  dancing 
party  by  requesting  a  waltz ! 

It  is  one  of  the  happy  illusions  of  the  youthful 
that  they  represent  full  bloom  and  that  every 
thing  beyond  them  is  decay. 

They  burst  upon  the  scene  and  accept  all  the 
legacies,  for  which  we  have  toiled,  as  personal 
property  to  which  they  are  entitled  because  of 
their  all-around  superiority  to  any  other  living 
objects  in  sight. 

We  have  smothered  them  with  riches  and 
blinded  them  with  revelations,  and  then  we  are 
surprised  because  they  differ  from  the  little 
gawks  and  ignorami  who  circulated  around  the 
schoolhouse  back  in  Hickory  Creek,  when  Pa 
smoked  cheroots  and  Ma  owned  a  Cashmere 
shawl. 

Come  to  think  of  it,  we  were  a  little  stuck-up 
in  those  remote  days  because  we  had  coal-oil 
lamps  instead  of  candles  and,  when  we  hunted 
rabbits,  we  used  percussion  caps  instead  of  a 
flintlock.  Possibly  we  were  slightly  amused  by 
the  old  fogies  who  preferred  "Roll  on,  Silvery 


TO-DAY'S  AMAZING  CROP         95 

Moon"  to  the  up-to-date  entrancements  of 
"Molly  Darling/'  and  "Love  Among  the  Roses." 

I  remember  the  first  bunch  of  bananas  shipped 
to  our  town.  Undoubtedly  we  felt  sorry  for  all 
preceding  generations  of  boys  who  never  had 
tasted  bananas,  and  probably  we  felt  sorry  for 
the  generations  of  boys  to  come,  because  we  had 
used  up  all  the  thrills  and  surprises  and  there 
wouldn't  be  any  left  for  them. 

I  suppose  the  older  folks  around  town  thought 
we  were  gaited  pretty  high — what  with  eating 
bananas  and  carrying  glass  marbles  and  play 
ing  on  mouth  organs  and  raising  Cain  gener 
ally! 

But,  oh,  my  comrades  of  that  distant  yester 
day,  we  were  as  primitive  as  papooses!  The 
big  show  for  children  had  not  opened.  Now  it 
is  in  full  swing.  Will  the  older  people  kindly 
move  to  the  rear  seats? 


PUTTING  UP  A  FRONT 

WHEN  we  learn  that  most  of  the  men 
dashing  through  the  portals  of  ex 
clusive  clubs  are  tailor-made  lads  of 
breezy  manner,  we  begin  to  weaken  on  some  of 
the  moral  precepts  found  in  copybooks. 

The  principal  of  the  high  school  told  us  that 
nothing  counts  in  the  long  battle  except  those 
flinty  virtues  which  are  practiced  by  deacons 
with  throat-whiskers. 

Be  honest,  be  temperate,  be  frugal,  be  indus 
trious,  be  persevering,  be  just,  be  et  cetera  and 
then — what  ? 

Why,  you  may  be  all  of  these,  and  handsome 
withal,  but  if  you  have  not  learned  the  open 
secrets  of  putting  up  a  front,  some  day  you  will 
be  working  for  an  inferior  being  who  knows  how 
to  dress  his  show  windows. 

The  subterranean  sweatshops  of  all  the  bee 
hives  of  the  world  are  clogged  with  undiscovered 
geniuses. 

They  thought  they  could  find  the  road  guide 
96 


PUTTING  UP  A  FRONT  97 

to  material  advancement  in  a  book — so  they 
never  mingled  with  other  travellers  on  the  high 
way. 

They  never  seemed  to  grasp  the  following: 

First:  A  good  story  told  at  the  right  time 
has  more  commercial  value  than  a  concealed 
knowledge  of  political  economy. 

Second:  In  any  city  above  100,000,  the  hair 
cut  is  more  important  than  a  consciousness  of 
moral  grandeur. 

Third:  In  a  crowded  street,  the  upstart  with 
a  banner  attracts  more  favourable  attention 
than  the  intellectual  giant  who  has  fallen  into 
a  coalhole. 

Putting  up  a  front  involves: 

Learning  to  talk  rather  entertainingly  on  all 
occasions. 

Learning  to  listen  with  simulated -eagerness. 

Well-fitting  clothes  of  recent  pattern,  gar 
nished  with  clean  linen  and,  if  the  excuse  can  be 
found,  a  flower  in  the  buttonhole. 

Playing  up  a  placid  optimism,  somehow  sug 
gestive  of  hidden  resources. 

Absolute  refusal  to  look  up  to  those  who  may 
regard  themselves  as  important  because  of 
money  or  family  connections.  The  front  will 
crumble  if  it  is  not  backed  up  by  a  superb 


98  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

belief  in  the  non-superiority  of  all  other 
mortals. 

Too  much  premium  has  been  awarded  the 
rough  diamond  qualities. 

The  man  putting  up  a  front  has  been  accused 
of  dealing  with  superficialities. 

Not  at  all. 

He  arranges  his  wardrobe  and  dresses  up  his 
personality  and  supervises  his  vocabulary  and 
stage-manages  his  conduct  so  as  to  make  all 
comers  believe  that  he  is  important. 

He  need  not  be  a  bluff,  but  if  he  is  a  bluff,  the 
front  becomes  doubly  valuable. 

Travelled  Europeans  and  all  cosmopolites 
know  how  to  put  up  a  front. 

We  of  the  homespun  variety  and  necks  shaved 
high  affect  a  scorn  for  the  outward  graces  of  the 
Old  World. 

And  yet,  any  talented  foreigner  who  comes 
with  his  savoir  faire  in  one  hand  and  a  mil 
dewed  title  in  the  other,  can  get  free  board  and 
entertainment  for  life  anywhere  in  America. 

Every  college  should  have  a  chair  of  Front- 
ology. 

The  front  is  a  prodigious  asset — whether  you 
have  the  goods  in  stock  or  not. 


HOME-COOKING 

EACH  spring,  as  we  say  good-bye  to  the 
final  buckwheat  cake  of  reluctant  spring 
and  go  forth,  wearing  garlands,  to  greet 
fried  chicken,  we  are  again  reminded  that  what 
every  woman  knows  can  never  be  learned  by  a 
chef. 

Regard  the  two  items  listed  in  the  preamble. 

When  the  first  killing  frost  whitens  the  fields, 
Aunt  Libbie  compounds  a  large  crock  of  batter 
which  is  bubbled  on  top  and  has  a  yeasty  aroma. 
She  keeps  it  in  a  warm  spot  and,  by  judicious 
replacing,  dips  from  the  earthen  vessel,  during 
the  cold  months,  say  2800  to  3000  buckwheat 
cakes  which  are  as  much  superior  to  the  factory- 
made  flapjacks  of  hotels  and  restaurants  as 
roses  are  more  fragrant  than  rutabagas. 

Here  is  a  question  never  yet  answered:  Why 
cannot  hotels  and  clubs  and  cafes  master  the 
simple  technique  which  seems  to  be  nature's  gift 
to  every  housewife? 

Why  is  it  that  when  you  put  a  white  cap  on 

99 


100  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

a  man  and  pay  him  $18,000  a  year  he  can  think 
of  nothing  except  sauces? 

Is  he  too  proud  to  go  to  Aunt  Libbie  and  find 
out  how  to  rush  from  the  griddle  a  product  that 
is  thin  and  hot  and  snappy  and  crispy  and  alto 
gether  enticing? 

He  has  a  million  recipes  with  French  labels, 
but  when  he  serves  an  order  of  strawberry  short 
cake,  he  simply  advertises  his  shame. 

Certain  dishes  may  be  regarded  as  the  culi 
nary  corner-stones  of  domestic  tranquillity. 

She  who  makes  good  oyster  soup  deserves 
every  honour  accorded  Joan  of  Arc. 

Oyster  soup?  Why  should  it  be  a  hidden 
and  unattainable  secret  to  any  one? 

And  yet,  when  you  get  among  the  onyx  col 
umns  and  the  Alsatian  noblemen  and  the  sym 
phony  orchestras,  the  glorious  blending  of  sa 
voury  ingredients  becomes  a  tepid  pool  in  which 
oysters  at  high-fever  temperature  are  struggling 
feebly. 

Any  man  who  has  lived  in  a  civilized  home 
knows  the  ritual  in  connection  with  poultry  of 
the  adolescent  kind. 

He  knows  that  the  carcass  should  be  dismem 
bered  into  the  largest  possible  number  of  units 
and  that  these  priceless  tidbits  need  to  be  soaked 


HOME-COOKING  101 

in  cold  water  before  they  are  rolled  in  flour  and 
committed  to  the  hot  skillet.  Then  there  is  a 
precautionary  steaming  just  before  they  are 
hand-forked  to  the  platter. 

Year  after  year  the  patrons  lined  up  at  public 
eating  racks  have  been  ordering  "Fried  chicken, 
country  style,"  hoping  in  vain  that  some  day  or 
other  they  will  get  what  they  want. 

It  is  now  a  crime  to  shake  up  a  cocktail  and 
yet  thousands  of  caterers  who  try  to  fry  one  half 
of  a  spring  chicken  in  one  individual  segment 
are  permitted  to  stay  out  of  jail. 

Shall  we  take  up  the  matter  of  waffles?  How 
about  rice  pudding? 

Did  you  ever  find  in  a  four-million-dollar  ho 
tel  the  kind  of  layer  cake  served  by  the  ladies  of 
the  M.  E.  Church? 

Fillet  of  sole  as  done  at  the  Marguery — yes! 
Cottage  cheese,  mince  pie,  new  asparagus  in 
cream,  light  biscuit  cookies,  noodles — no! 


BROADWAY 

IT  IS  an  extreme  provocation — attacking  a 
man  in  the  region  of  his  geography.  And 
for  a  Middle-Westerner  to  pick  flaws  in 
New  York — presumption  carried  to  the  limit ! 

So  let  it  be  understood  that  this  is  not  the  at 
tempt  of  a  jealous  provincial  to  belittle  the  glo 
ries  of  the  mastodonic  metropolis. 

Call  it,  rather,  the  candid  attempt  of  a  man 
who  has  travelled  a  great  deal  to  set  down,  with 
out  prejudice,  the  impressions  which  smite  him 
whenever  he  rides  the  whirlpool. 

This  is  not  a  cry  of  pain  from  one  who  paid 
one  dollar  for  "Eggs  Mornay"  and  twenty-five 
cents  to  get  the  derby  hat  back,  and  is  now  writ 
ing  for  purposes  of  revenge. 

Our  principal  seaport  has  no  monopoly  on 
high  prices  or  unblushing  brigandage  by  the 
imps  of  the  check  room. 

Waiters  must  be  tipped  everywhere  in  the 
world.  The  common  carrier  in  every  clime  is 
an  immediate  relative  of  Jesse  James. 

102 


BROADWAY  103 

Also,  let  it  be  freely  admitted  at  the  begin 
ning  that  we  casual  visitors  from  the  hinterland 
do  not  see  the  real  New  York.  We  arrive  in  a 
jam  and  remain  in  a  bedlam,  surrounded  by 
squealing  orchestras,  lolling  loungers  who  live 
to  dance  or  dance  to  live,  jabbering  waiters, 
pages  who  look  like  mechanical  toys,  while  all  of 
the  intervening  spaces  are  filled  in  with  non 
residents  who  have  temporarily  lost  the  import 
ance  which  attaches  to  them  at  their  various 
post-office  addresses. 

Granted  that  most  of  us  get  only  the  most 
superficial  glimpses  of  New  York  as  we  whiz  in 
the  merry-go-round;  granted  that  the  frantic 
attempts  to  crowd  a  month  of  lunching  and  din 
ing  and  supping  and  roof-gardening  and  play- 
going  and  shopping  into  one  short  week  disar 
range  our  temperaments  and  disqualify  us  to 
render  cold  judicial  opinions;  granted  that  the 
cosmopolitan  spirit  does  not  abide  in  one  who 
sits  on  the  front  porch  in  the  evening;  granted 
almost  any  similar  premise,  and  still  the  ques 
tion  is:  "Why  should  New  York  City  be  classi 
fied  as  the  Garden  of  Eden,  with  modern  attach 
ments?" 

The  propaganda  pulled  in  behalf  of  New  York 
is  subtly  intended  to  foster  the  belief  that  the 


104  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

sun  shines  over  Fifth  Avenue  all  the  time  that 
rain  is  descending  on  Omaha;  that  the  food 
served  at  the  Biltmore  is  chemically  different 
from  any  that  might  be  procured  at  the  Palace 
in  San  Francisco;  that  Life — with  a  capital  L — 
is  more  carmine,  even  on  off-days,  in  New  York 
than  it  could  ever  hope  to  be  in  Little  Rock, 
Arkansas. 

My  earliest  recollection  of  fiction  is  entangled 
with  murderous  conspiracies  on  the  Bowery, 
night-prowling  among  the  docks  of  East  River, 
and  a  triumphant  capture  of  all  the  "miscreants" 
by  a  New  York  detective  of  superhuman  cour 
age  and  cleverness. 

The  popular  songs  and  the  plays,  as  far  back 
as  we  can  remember,  exploited  Manhattan 
Island  as  the  centre  of  the  Universe. 

ACT  1.  Geoffrey  Williston's  office  in  Wall  Street. 
"Weaving  the  web." 

ACT  2.  City  Hall  Square  by  moonlight.  "Caught 
in  the  meshes." 

ACT  3.  Scene  1.  A  basement  in  Houston  Street. 
Scene  2.  The  East  River  Docks.  "Dead  men  tell  no 
tales." 

ACT  4.  A  saloon  on  the  Bowery.  "He  laughs  best 
who  laughs  last." 

ACT  5.  Harold  Ferguson's  home  on  Fifth  Avenue. 
"Reunited." 


BROADWAY  105 

For  years  and  years,  in  every  one-night  stand 
''opera  house"  known  to  the  booking  agencies, 
the  public  was  being  taught  that  New  York 
was  forever  a-tingle  with  intrigues  and  hair 
breadth  escapes  and  noble  sacrifices  and  heroic 
rescues. 

We  never  saw  on  the  stage  a  sneering  villain 
—silk-lined  cape  coat,  tall  hat,  cigarette — 
whose  habitat  was  Norfolk,  Virginia. 

If  the  snaky  adventuress  with  the  low  grating 
laugh  and  the  jet  ornaments  had  been  set  forth 
on  the  play  bill  as  a  Milwaukee  product,  she 
wouldn't  have  been  accepted  as  a  real  Circe. 

And  the  square-jawed  police  captain  who  ap 
peared  in  the  last  act — do  you  remember?  "I 
arrest  you  for  the  murder  of  Roger  Thorndike!" 
Ta-da-a-a!  A  long  chord  from  all  of  the 
stringed  instruments.  Thunderous  applause 
from  the  gallery.  Would  the  scene  have  carried 
any  weight  if  the  captain  had  been  a  member  of 
the  Indianapolis  police  force? 

Think  of  the  millions  of  farm  hands  and 
small-to\vners  who  have  been  beguiled  by  the 
songs  about  Broadway. 

Back  in  the  days  of  the  saccharine  song  and 
dance — the  dear  old  Billy  Emerson  period  of 
plush  trousers  and  hair  oil — it  seemed  that  every 


106  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

popular  tune  was  adjusted  to  words  somewhat 
like  the  following: 

As  I  stroll  along  Broadway, 

You  can  hear  the  ladies  say: 

"He's  a  dandy,  he's  a  dude,  as  you  can  plainlee  tell; 

He-e-e's  a  regular  New  York  swell!" 

No  boy  residing  west  of  the  Alleghanies 
would  have  purchased  a  song-sheet  which  per 
mitted  the  captivating  heartbreaker,  first  person 
singular,  to  promenade  on  Chestnut  Street, 
Philadelphia,  or  Tremont,  in  Boston.  No,  sir; 
the  idol  of  the  women  had  to  "stroll  along 
Broadway." 

1  have  had  the  much-touted  thoroughfare 
under  observation  for  a  good  many  years,  and  I 
don't  believe  that  any  one  ever  "strolled"  along 
Broadway.  If  he  made  any  progress  he  had  to 
duck,  sidestep,  use  the  shoulder  occasionally, 
and  do  more  or  less  climbing. 

Running  a  close  second  to  Broadway  in  the 
folklore  of  the  corn  belt  is  that  starchy  strip  of 
territory  known  as  Fifth  Avenue. 

It  has  been  featured  by  song  writers  for  sev 
eral  generations.  When  the  musical  comedy 
dicky-bird  with  the  one-button  slashaway  and 
the  geometrical  eyebrows  invites  sixteen  bella- 


BROADWAY  107 

donna  heiresses  to  go  on  a  toodly-oo  up  the  "ave- 
noo,"  the  most  crustacean  form  of  tired  business 
man  understands  that  Ethelbert  is  not  referring 
to  Euclid  Avenue,  Cleveland,  or  Michigan  Ave 
nue,  Chicago. 

All  he  needs  to  say  is  "the  Avenue,"  and  the 
trained  public  silently  agrees  with  him  that 
there  is  only  one  avenue  in  America  which 
could  provide  a  sufficiently  patrician  back 
ground  for  a  nasal  tenor  and  sixteen  harmless 
little  playmates  with  bare  legs. 

If  the  villagers  everywhere  in  the  United 
States  have  come  to  regard  "Gotham"  as  the 
city  of  dreadful  pleasures,  they  are  not  to  be 
blamed.  The  writers  of  the  "Sunday  letters," 
and  the  space-fillers  who  provide  those  one-page 
stories  concerning  Wall  Street  night-hawks  and 
"vamps"  with  long  eye-lashes  and  chorus 
girls  of  killing  beauty — they  have  loaded  up  the 
outside  population  with  conceptions  of  New 
York  as  a  sort  of  luxurious  lair,  lined  with  eider 
down,  drenched  with  perfumery,  and  with  scar 
let  flags  flying  about  it. 

Every  struggling  hamlet  has  a  son  or  daughter 
who  has  been  lured  to  the  white  lights  of  the 
"great  city."  This  local  product  may  be  only 
a  department-store  menial  or  a  subway  guard, 


108  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

but  when  she  or  he  gets  back  home  all  the  local 
functionaries  sit  humbly  in  the  background  and 
listen  to  Aladdin  tales  of  the  enchanted  Bagdad. 

The  Great  Myth  is  being  perpetuated  by  com 
mon  consent.  Everything  on  the  wrong  side 
of  the  Hudson  River  is  Siberia.  "When  you 
leave  Jersey  City,  you're  camping  out."  .  .  . 
"I'd  rather  be  a  lamp-post  in  New  York  City 
than  a  millionaire  in  Chicago/' 

I  have  heard  two  New  Yorkers,  meeting  each 
other  out  in  the  Middle  West,  condole  together 
as  if  they  had  been  cast  upon  a  cannibal  island. 
And  I  have  seen  them  later,  back  in  the  good 
old  town  they  loved  so  well,  taking  orders  from 
corner  policemen  and  bowing  down  before  head 
waiters. 

New  York  is  the  largest  city  of  the  New 
World.  It  is  first  in  almost  everything.  It  has 
more  banks,  more  hotels,  more  theatres,  more 
cloak  and  suit  lofts,  more  actors  out  of  work, 
more  taxi  drivers  who  should  be  back  in  Sing 
Sing,  more  smartly  groomed  women,  more  wo 
men  with  chameleon  costumes  and  enamelled 
faces,  more  table  d'hote  restaurants,  more  drift 
ing  down-and-outers,  more  streets  torn  up,  more 
blinding  electric  signs,  more  flap-jack  demon 
strators  in  show  windows — why  enumerate?  Of 


BROADWAY  109 

course  it  is  some  maelstrom  and  we  stand  off 
and  marvel  at  it. 

But,  assuming  that  a  man  has  but  one  life  to 
live  and  that  he  has  not  been  endowed  with  a 
craving  for  crowds  and  excitement,  and  has  no 
morbid  desire  to  stand  very  near  the  big  guns 
when  they  are  roaring,  why  should  he  wish  to 
travel  up  to  the  city  and  become  lost  in  the 
crush? 

The  following  may  be  treason,  but  we  will 
let  it  ride  just  the  same:  The  essentials  of  a 
civilized  and  decent  and  soul-satisfying  career 
are  no  more  plentiful  in  New  York  than  they 
are  in  Minneapolis  or  Seattle. 

Of  course,  a  man  who  decides  to  set  in  his 
chips  in  Wall  Street  will  want  to  sit  near  the 
wheel.  Furthermore,  the  jobber  in  ladies'  hats 
will  camp  where  he  can  get  at  the  buyers.  And 
the  magazine  illustrator  will  want  to  be  near 
the  editors.  And  so  on,  for  pages  and  pages. 

All  the  residents  of  those  vast  congested  areas 
have  good  excuses  for  remaining.  Perhaps  two 
per  cent,  of  them  find  stimulus  and  inspiration 
from  being  near  the  palpable  evidences  of  vision, 
courage,  and  ambition.  The  others  derive  a  sort 
of  dull  satisfaction  from  being  identified  with 
what  promises  to  be  the  most  stupendous  mate- 


110  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

rial  achievement  of  all  history,  viz.,  New  York 
City. 

A  good  many  of  the  "typical"  New  Yorkers 
who  sit  at  the  large  desks  and  are  known  to  the 
doorkeepers  at  the  clubs  can  be  dated  back  to 
little  New  England  towns  or  Western  farms. 
The  streams  of  business  activity  converge 
toward  the  great  seaport,  and  they  were  wise 
enough  to  set  their  nets  where  the  waters  meet. 

But  the  Great  Myth  is  not  founded  upon  New 
York's  importance  as  a  merchandising  centre. 
It  assumes  that  the  only  true  happiness  in  the 
U.  S.  A.  is  to  be  found  lurking  somewhere  be 
tween  the  Battery  and  Yonkers.  We  who  live 
outside  are  supposed  to  believe  that  life  with 
out  cabarets  is  drab  indeed.  How  far  away  St. 
Louis  seems  when  one  is  almost  in  the  imme 
diate  presence  of  the  latest  discovery  in  show 
girls!  And  what  a  line  upon  the  general  New 
Yorkness  of  things  to  reflect  that  only  a  few 
years  ago  this  same  reigning  queen  was  a  wait 
ress  in  St.  Louis! 

Every  rhinestone  that  wants  to  pass  for  a 
diamond  instinctively  moves  toward  Broadway. 

There  are  more  make-believes  between  the 
lower  wholesale  district  and  Central  Park  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  world,  figuring  the  same 


BROADWAY  111 

area.  There  are  more  bluffs  wearing  violets, 
more  beautiful  show  windows  with  no  stocks  of 
goods  behind  them,  more  polite  adventurers 
who  are  trying  to  get  something  for  nothing, 
more  ragged-edgers  and  almost-somebodies  than 
we  may  ever  hope  to  assemble  in  our  inland 
cities. 

Why  does  New  York  get  them?  Because 
they  are  the  willing  victims  of  that  ancient  and 
perennial  fiction  that  New  York  is  the  abiding 
place  of  Joy;  that  Pleasure  beckons  from  every 
window  and  there  are  no  turnstiles  guarding  the 
primrose  path. 

They  find  it  convenient  to  get  into  an  atmos 
phere  where  "front"  may  be  made  .a  substitute 
for  character  or  reputation. 

Constantly  they  delude  themselves  into  be 
lieving  that  they  are  finding  the  thing  they  seek. 
The  hallucination  that  New  York  must  be  the 
nearest  earthly  approximation  to  Heaven  has 
been  so  hammered  into  them  that  they  are  afraid 
to  deny  it,  even  to  themselves.  When  they  are 
walking  on  their  spats  and  waiting  anxiously  for 
luncheon  invitations,  they  continue  to  be  grate 
ful  that  they  are  not  back  in  Grand  Rapids. 

You  say  that  all  these  sarcastic  observations 
do  not  concern  the  real  New  York — the  great 


112  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

body  of  executives,  and  heavy-weight  financiers, 
and  keen  professional  men  and  clever,  public- 
spirited  women  who  give  the  metropolis  its  real 
fibre.  Quite  true.  The  real  New  York  is  a 
wonder.  The  men  and  women  who  actually 
direct  the  mainspring  influences  of  New  York 
are  well-dressed,  well-mannered,  well-poised,  and 
acquainted  with  the  rules  for  good  living. 

Many  of  them  are  self-centred,  except  when 
a  great  upheaval,  such  as  the  recent  war,  gets 
them  out  of  their  narrow  orbits.  Most  of  them 
are  inexcusably  ignorant  regarding  their  own 
country.  They  share,  with  the  polite  riffraff 
and  the  uncounted  thousands  of  city  yaps,  a 
serene  belief  that  Providence  has  been  kind  to 
them  in  permitting  them  to  live  in  New  York. 
Newspapers  and  magazines  and  plays  have  fed 
them  the  same  insidious  propaganda  that  lures 
the  village  heller  who  thinks  he  is  a  "twelve- 
o'clock  feller  in  a  nine-o'clock  town." 

If  a  man  goes  to  New  York  because  he  can 
make  more  money  there  than  anywhere  else, 
that  fixes  his  alibi,  but  does  not  touch  upon  the 
real  merits  of  the  case. 

If  he  says  that  the  food  and  drink  are  better 
in  New  York  than  can  be  found  anywhere  else 
in  the  Western  World  (and  most  of  the  glaring 


BROADWAY  113 

virtues  claimed  for  New  York  have  been  suspi 
ciously  identified  with  the  digestive  tract),  the 
indignant  denials  will  come  not  only  from  Bos 
ton,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore,  but  there  will 
be  shrieks  of  protest  from  New  Orleans  and  San 
Francisco,  and  even  Chicago  may  refuse  to  re 
main  silent. 

The  truth  is,  there  has  been  a  standardization 
of  first-class  hotels  and  restaurants  throughout 
the  world.  Catering  is  no  longer  an  old-world 
secret.  There  are  competent  managers  and 
trained  chefs  and  luxurious  suites  in  dozens  of 
growing  cities  which  the  stay-at-home  New 
Yorker  still  classifies  as  frontier  towns  with 
dance  halls  and  shooting  affrays. 

Furthermore,  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  has 
been  a  great  leveller.  Even  while  the  chief  asset 
of  Gomorrah  is  disappearing,  the  true  champion 
of  New  York  boasts  that  those  who  are  known 
to  Henri,  the  head  waiter,  can  "get  it"  in  a  tea 
cup  for  $1.50.  And  after  you  have  enveloped  it, 
you  hold  on  to  the  table  and  wonder  whether 
you  will  try  another  dance  or  take  a  little  ride 
in  a  white  ambulance. 

The  only  man  who  has  a  right  to  discuss 
comparative  values  these  days  is  the  man  who 
has  travelled  with  an  open  mind. 


114  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

Most  New  Yorkers  travel  in  the  wrong  direc 
tion.  And  in  making  up  their  estimates  they 
too  often  overlook  the  fact  that  inland  America 
is  now  fairly  crowded  with  people  who  know 
their  New  York  and  their  London  and  Paris 
and  Rome. 

Furthermore,  the  New  Yorkers  who  have  un 
limited  money  and  leisure  spend  at  least  eighty 
per  cent,  of  their  time  at  country  places,  down 
in  Florida,  or  over  on  the  Riviera.  These  trunk- 
dwellers  use  New  York  principally  to  go  to  once 
in  awhile  and  to  refer  to  all  of  the  time. 

Having  delivered  these  spiteful  slams  and 
side  swipes,  let  us  revert  to  the  original  propo 
sition:  New  York  City  is  immense,  in  the  full 
significance  of  the  word — our  prize  exhibit  in 
the  way  of  cities  and  the  logical  destination  of 
every  tall-grasser  who  has  a  bank  roll  and  an 
aching  desire  to  throw  it  at  something. 

We  who  live  out  where  the  plaster  is  green 
on  the  walls  and  the  original  settler  is  still  talk 
ing  politics,  derive  a  very  sentimental  satisfac 
tion  from  rambling  into  the  corners  of  New 
York  which  are  redolent  of  history.  Even  the 
comparatively  modern  structures  are  Parthe- 
nons  to  us.  We  do  not  require  a  Fraunce's 
Tavern  or  the  house  in  which  Aaron  Burr 


BROADWAY  115 

courted  one  of  his  many  widows.  City  Hall 
means  more  to  us  than  it  does  to  Tammany. 

The  cottage  in  which  Poe  lived,  and  Gramercy 
Park,  and  the  beautiful  old  Brevoort  House, 
where  Jenny  Lind  came  out  and  sang  for  the 
college  students,  are  shrines  to  the  provincials, 
even  if  they  are  only  street  numbers  to  the 
people  who  ride  by  reading  their  newspapers. 

Above  all  else,  possibly  we  remember  New 
York  as  an  embarrassment  of  riches. 

One  can  dine  in  but  one  restaurant  in  one 
evening,  but  isn't  it  wonderful  to  have  your 
choice  of  a  hundred  places,  ranging  from  a 
Cascade  Room  to  a  ravioli  haunt? 

And  the  theatres!  There  are  several  hun 
dred  show-shops,  each  with  coaxing  lights  in 
front  of  it,  and  at  least  a  dozen  of  the  new  things 
have  been  especially  recommended.  Ziegfelds 
to  right  of  us,  Dillinghams  to  left  of  us,  and  a 
lot  of  Barry  mores  in  between. 

Because  a  town  is  big  and  alluring  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  be  regarded  as  the  best 
sort  of  home.  The  spirit  of  neighbourliness 
seems  frozen  out  of  the  air  in  New  York  City. 
The  stranger  doesn't  feel  that  he  is  getting  any 
friendly  glances.  He  wonders  what  would  hap 
pen  to  him  if  he  should  drop  dead.  Probably 


116  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

the  people  would  step  over  him  and  grumble  a 
little  at  the  obstruction. 

New  York  is  full  of  underlings  who  are 
frightened  to  death  if  you  step  up  and  address 
them  as  human  beings.  They  have  been  de 
humanized  and  put  into  the  white-rabbit  divi 
sion  under  slow  pressure  from  imported  customs, 
snobbish  practices  and  false  systems  of  classi 
fication. 

In  New  York,  more  than  in  any  other  large 
city  in  the  world,  wealth  is  over-manicured  and 
perfumed  and  too  freely  decked  with  gauds.  It 
is  more  Oriental  than  Yankee. 

Once  more,  no  one  denies  the  presence  in 
New  York  of  a  substantial  filling  population 
which  is  representative  of  all  the  best  qualities 
of  the  best  American  citizenhood.  But  the  flash, 
vulgarity,  and  self-advertising  of  new  wealth 
are  more  in  evidence  than  are  the  rugged  New 
England  traits. 

That  is  why  it  is  such  a  relief  to  escape,  after 
a  week  or  ten  days,  and  get  out  somewhere  and 
associate  with  trees. 

New  York  oppresses  the  visitor  who  has  a 
real  solicitude  for  his  fellow  man,  because  of  the 
evidences  that  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
residents  are  not  getting  very  much  out  of  life. 


BROADWAY  117 

Some  of  us  don't  wish  to  settle  down  where 
we  will  be  forever  surrounded  by  packed-in  men, 
women,  and  children,  who  live  like  eight  canaries 
in  a  cage. 

We  can  find  no  satisfaction  in  regarding  a 
juvenile  population  compelled  to  use  the  streets 
as  playgrounds.  We  would  not  be  comfortable 
in  such  a  mess  of  stunted  and  warped  and  dis- 
proportioned  lives. 

The  most  ignorant  and  inert  persons  I  have 
ever  encountered  in  North  America  live  in  the 
congested  districts  of  our  large  cities.  There  is 
less  hopefulness  per  capita  and  more  asphyxiated 
ambition.  But  I  never  found  one  of  the  aborted 
specimens  who  didn't  pity  me  because  I  had  to 
live  in  Indiana! 

New  York  has  an  abiding  fascination  because 
the  exhibits  are  varied  and  picturesque,  but  the 
big  show  is  about  one  half  Bal  Tabarin  and  the 
other  half  Chamber  of  Horrors. 

So,  if  several  millions  of  us  are  willing  to  be 
regarded  as  eccentric  in  preferring  the  outer 
dimness  to  the  inner  circle  of  bright  lights,  go 
ahead  and  say  what  you  please  about  us. 

We  will  come  and  visit  you,  no  matter  what 
you  say,  but  the  return  ticket  will  always  be 
pinned  inside  the  vest. 


ADIPOSE 

THAT  Victorian  female  figure — "fair,  fat 
and  forty" — has  gone  into  the  discard 
with  the  horse-drawn  landau,  the  volu 
minous  bathing  suit,  and  the  napkin  ring. 

Every  woman  who  is  now  dodging  the  har 
poons  of  criticism  tries  to  look  starved  to  death 
and  not  over  28,  except  when  washed  up. 

No  more  of  that  antiquated  stuff  about  an 
architecturally  attractive  abdomen,  with  good 
capon  lined.  Straight  fronts  are  the  mode  for 
both  sexes.  The  flapper  prides  herself  that  she 
can  hold  together  and  look  compact,  even  after 
she  has  checked  her  corset  and  made  ready  for  an 
evening  of  catch-as-catch-can  with  the  flippers. 
It  is  all  right  to  be  athletic,  but  no  one  must 
advertise  the  tummy. 

Gracious  me!  It  seems  only  yesterday  that 
the  person  not  palpably  underlaid  with  suet  and 
carrying  the  foundations  of  a  double  chin  was 
supposed  to  be  "run  down"  and  was,  therefore, 
urgently  advised  to  go  on  cod  liver  oil, 

118 


ADIPOSE  119 

Now  we  can  look  into  any  home  and  see  the 
socially  prominent  standing  in  front  of  phono 
graphs  and  going  through  absurd  jack-knife 
exercises  so  as  to  get  rid  of  the  evidence  of  being 
well-fed. 

The  statement  that  nobody  loves  a  fat  man 
has  been  weakly  contradicted,  but  just  now  it 
seems  generally  agreed  that  no  fat  woman 
loves  herself. 

When  one  of  the  plump  kind  sees  another 
who  is  chubby  and  asks,  "Am  I  as  fat  as  she  is?" 
— the  man  failing  to  lie  promptly  is  in  wrong 
for  days  to  come. 

Consider  the  drama.  In  the  days  of  "Evan- 
geline"  the  most  admired  girl  in  the  chorus  was 
shaped  like  a  bass  viol.  Now  she  is  like  a 
fountain  pen. 

Almost  for  the  first  time  in  history  the  steady 
loss  of  weight  is  regarded  as  a  moral  triumph 
instead  of  a  sympton  of  some  wasting  disease. 

For  centuries  the  waist  line  was  unmeasured 
and  unconsidered  and  then,  all  at  once,  every 
book-shop  became  crowded  with  volumes  on 
how  to  diet  while  continuing  to  eat  nearly  every 
thing  put  in  front  of  you. 

Then  someone  discovered  the  vitamin,  and 
the  confusion  became  more  general. 


S1NY.I  I-'  HI. I  SSI  DM  SS 

Almost  at  the  same  time  there  came  from  in 
visible  headquarters  a  decree  that  every  woman 
who  was  skinny  should  advertise  to  the  world 
the  decree  of  her  emaciation — both  above  and 
below, 

Our  idea  of  a  rich  afternoon  would  be  to  get 
Benjamin  Franklin.  Martha  Washington.  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson,  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  Oliver 
Cromwell  together  on  the  sunny  side  of  either 
Fifth  Avenue  or  Michigan  Boulevard  some 
pleasant  matinee  day  and  just  let  them  see  for 
themselves.  Would  they,  or  would  they  not, 
get  an  eyeful?  And  how  about  having  some 
thing  to  talk  about  after  they  arrived  back 
home? 


LETTERS  OF  INTRODUCTION 

LI  I  us  now  select  words  which  may  be 
transmitted  through  the  mail  and  which 
will,  at  the  same  time,  properly  stigma- 
li/e  the  individual  who  insists  upon  giving  to 
the  reluctant  party  of  the  second  part  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  some  innocent  and  unsuspecting 
party  of  the  third  part. 

If  we  have  any  scalding  anathema  left  over, 
use  it  on  the  beaming  bounder  who  wants  you 
to  give  him  a  letter  of  introduction  to  someone 
off  yonder. 

Then,  if  there  should  be  a  residue  of  vitupera 
tive  phrases,  how  about  you,  yourself?  How 
about  the  backbone  which  so  closely  resembles 
a  length  of  macaroni?  Why  do  you,  in  order 
to  escape  the  gurgling  pest,  wish  him  on  to 
someone  who  was  in  your  class  at  college? 

Worth-while  associations  and  friendships  are 
worked  out  by  easy  and  natural  processes.  The 
beaten  paths  converge  or  run  parallel  and  you 
have  time  to  size  up  the  fellow  traveller  and 

121 


122  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

decide  whether  or  not  to  say  "Hello!"  If  you 
get  a  glazed  eye  instead  of  a  smile,  the  incident 
is  closed. 

But  when  you  lassoo  two  persons  out  of  a 
crowd  and  lash  them  together,  much  suffering 
ensues. 

Take  a  typical  case.  Consider  the  physical 
writhings  and  mental  anguish  which  result  from 
a  strict  observance  of  a  kindly  custom  inaugu 
rated  away  back  yonder  by  the  original  buck- 
passer. 

A  sits  in  his  office.  B  enters.  B  says  that  he 
and  Mrs.  B  are  going  to  spend  a  few  weeks  at 
Swozzleham  and,  because  they  know  that  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  A  once  visited  the  Glugg-Tupleys  at 
Swozzleham,  would  they  advise  the  Bs  to  live 
at  the  new  Hyperion,  where  the  liver  and  bacon 
is  said  to  be  very  good,  or  move  out  to  the 
Pomposo,  overlooking  the  park? 

Now,  on  this  particular  morning,  there  is  no 
one  item,  in  all  the  vast  reaches  of  the  universe, 
which  so  little  concerns  A  as  the  plans  of  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  B  in  connection  with  Swozzleham.  A 
has  no  appetite  for  B.  The  overhanging  mous 
tache  suggests  a  walrus  nature  and  the  glittering 
stick-pin  is  the  top  note  in  bad  taste.  His  im 
mediate  ambition  is  to  remove  B  from  the  rug. 


LETTERS  OF  INTRODUCTION     123 

He  happens  to  think  of  C,  who  lives  in  Swoz- 
zleham.  Good  old  C — always  courteous,  con 
siderate  and  obliging!  In  other  words — a  goat. 

So  he  gives  B  a  letter  to  C.  It  is  a  com 
promise  between  downright  perjury  and  a  secret 
desire  to  communicate  some  kind  of  warning 
to  C.  Any  code  specialist,  reading  between  the 
lines,  would  translate  the  whole  thing  as  fol 
lows:  "Lay  off  of  this  bird.  He  tells  dialect 
stories." 

C  is  all  ready  to  grab  a  bowl  of  whole-wheat 
biscuit  and  milk  and  then  hurry  to  the  first  tee 
when  the  two-legged  disease  germ  gets  past  the 
body-guard  and  all  the  world  is  dark. 

C  reads  the  letter  while  his  important  vital 
organs  try  to  sink  into  the  lower  extremities. 

He  wants  to  know  what  he  can  do  for  B.  The 
latter  is  suddenly  pervaded  by  an  overwhelming 
consciousness  that  his  only  purpose  in  calling 
on  C  was  to  present  a  letter  of  introduction. 
For  the  first  time  it  occurs  to  him  that  he  might 
have  burned  the  letter.  He  wishes  that  he  had 
done  so. 

No  one  knows  who  laid  down  the  rule,  but  it 
is  sacred  and  binding!  He  who  comes  with  a 
letter  of  introduction  must  be  taken  out  to 
luncheon. 


124  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

Also,  the  host  must  force  either  oysters  or 
clams  on  the  embarrassed  visitor.  No  one  eats 
shell-fish  in  the  middle  of  the  day  except  upon 
a  letter  of  introduction. 

C  must  order  several  courses  for  B,  in  order 
to  prove  that  he  has  a  proper  regard  for  A.  He 
insists  upon  "some  kind  of  a  sweet."  This  is 
part  of  the  ritual. 

Within  a  day  or  two  the  wives  must  meet. 
They  never  hit  it  off.  In  the  meantime  A  moves 
among  his  neighbours,  respected  far  beyond  his 
merits. 

Do  you  want  to  make  someone  happy?  Get 
a  letter  of  introduction  to  the  famous  bone- 
setter  or  to  the  man  who  can  give  you  cards  to 
any  club  or  to  the  lady  who  gives  dinners  to 
people  who  have  done  things.  After  you  have 
left  town,  mail  the  letter  to  the  might-have-been 
victim  and  explain  that  you  were  very  busy  all 
during  your  visit. 

For  once,  somebody  will  say  nice  things  about 
you. 


AWAY  FROM  HOME 

EVERY  persistent  traveller  finally  commits 
himself  to  a  fad.  One  collects  walking 
sticks  and  another  becomes  a  fan  on 
church  architecture.  Once,  coming  back  on  the 
steamer,  a  man  from  Pennsylvania  showed  over 
forty  different  kinds  of  toothpicks! 

The  camera  fever  proved  to  be  intermittent, 
and  a  passion  for  accumulating  unusual  foot 
gear  naturally  wore  itself  out  after  one  trunk 
was  filled.  But  the  old  game  of  guessing  at  the 
fellow  travellers  never  lost  the  original  zest. 

You  happen  upon  a  cluster  of  Americans, 
stubbornly  trying  to  "do"  Switzerland  or  Japan 
or  Jamaica  according  to  the  printed  instructions, 
and  at  once  you  are  impelled  to  bring  out  your 
best  Sherlocking  and  try  to  classify  them. 

Are  they  New  England  or  Mississippi  Valley? 
Is  it  their  first  time  out?  Are  they  having  a 
good  time  or  merely  serving  a  sentence?  Has 
the  daughter  been  away  to  school?  Is  Mother 
really  managing  the  expedition?  Did  Father 

125 


126  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

have  a  nervous  collapse  before  leaving  home,  or 
is  that  hunted  look  the  result  of  recreation? 
From  what  size  town  do  they  hail?  What  do 
they  think  of  the  natives  hereabouts?  And 
what  do  the  natives  hereabouts  think  of  them? 

Well,  a  good  many  of  them  are  sappy,  that's 
a  fact;  but  I  would  rather  be  a  woozy  tourist 
than  a  blase  expatriate.  Heaven  help  the  aloof 
nondescripts  who  cease  to  be  American  without 
becoming  European.  The  war  has  recently 
interfered  a  good  deal  with  their  loafing,  but 
you  will  still  find  a  group  of  them  in  every 
European  capital,  and  they  are  the  ones  who 
take  a  savage  satisfaction  in  burning  up  their 
uncivilized  countrymen. 

It  disturbs  them  to  encounter  Americans  who 
do  not  reside  in  Boston. 

And  the  cheery,  what-ho  person  who  wears 
both  suspenders  and  belt,  in  accordance  with 
the  modern  precept  of  "Safety  First,"  who  ad 
dresses  each  stranger  as  "Brother,"  and  who 
affects  the  small  American  flag  in  the  button 
hole — he  gives  them  the  frothing  rabies. 

Let  it  be  admitted  that  the  gabby  lad  with 
the  smokeroom  training  can  be  an  affliction 
when  he  lets  himself  go;  but  he  is  a  good  deal 
easier  to  take  if  you  sit  back,  nonresistant,  and 


AWAY  FROM  HOME  127 

hang  on  to  your  sense  of  humour.  He  simply 
hasn't  learned  as  yet  that  all  that  brotherhood- 
of-man  stuff  was  written  as  a  joke. 

Regard  him  and  all  other  fellow  travellers 
with  a  large  tolerance  and  a  bountiful  com 
passion.  Ever  remembering: 

That  every  man  becomes  erratic  in  his  behaviour 
when  he  is  out  of  his  own  bailiwick  and  up  against  new 
problems.  This  applies  to  men  of  all  degrees  in  all 
countries.  There  are  not  enough  cosmopolites  in  the 
world  to  fill  Madison  Square  Garden. 

That  the  speech  and  dress  and  manners  of  any  people 
are  puzzling  and  amusing  to  every  other  tribe,  so  that 
the  tourist,  wherever  you  find  him,  is  rated  as  a  cross 
between  a  clown  and  a  mental  defective. 

That  the  torments  of  travel  gradually  breed  in  the 
pilgrim  a  mood  which  is  one  half  resentment  and  one 
half  apprehension,  the  result  being  that  even  when  the 
skies  are  clear  the  victim  is  looking  about  for  dark 
clouds. 

That  the  readiest  weapon  of  defense  is  talk,  and 
when  you  deprive  a  man  of  his  vocabulary  you  put  him 
back  into  the  dumb  animal  division,  and  load  him  down 
with  a  sense  of  unworthiness. 

When  we  get  away  from  home  we  violate  all 
the  rules  governing  our  everyday  conduct.  Our 
habits  are  no  good  to  us  unless  we  have  the  ac 
customed  tools. 

American   travellers   are   no  more  eccentric 


128  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

than  the  other  frenzied  ramblers,  but  there  are 
more  of  them,  and  they  represent  every  possible 
degree  of  wealth  and  social  position  and  previous 
conditions  of  provincialism. 

The  United  States  of  America  is  the  only 
country  producing  farmers,  small-town  mer 
chants  and  schoolma'ams  who  have  the  am 
bition  and  the  courage  to  exchange  their  hard 
earnings  for  the  benefits  of  foreign  travel.  In 
all  other  lands,  motor  cars  and  steamship  tickets 
are  outward  evidence  of  wealth.  Can  you  im 
agine  an  English  governess  or  a  French  peasant 
farmer  drawing  all  the  money  from  the  bank 
and  going  on  a  spree  of  spending? 

The  whole  of  our  domain  was  settled  by  in 
trepid  pioneers  who  picked  up  and  left  stag 
nated  communities  somewhere  east  of  us.  The 
wanderlust  is  a  rightful  heritage.  Furthermore, 
we  have  the  money  with  which  to  make  our 
dreams  come  true,  provided  we  do  not  dream  on 
too  large  a  scale. 

But,  when  we  go  moving  about  by  the  thou 
sands  and  hundreds  of  thousands,  we  certainly 
do  provide  entertainment  for  the  side  lines. 

We  start  out  with  an  over-developed  reverence 
for  landmarks  and  traditions.  Each  pilgrim 
age  is  apt  to  take  on  the  hue  of  a  business  propo- 


AWAY  FROM   HOME  129 

sition.  We  must  load  up  on  assorted  facts  and 
"broadening  influences"  each  day,  so  as  to  get 
our  money's  worth.  All  ways  and  means  are 
permissible  when  one  is  eagerly  searching  for 
knowledge  and  "local  colour"  and  has  a  time 
limit  hanging  over  him. 

Therefore  we  see  Presbyterian  matrons,  who 
will  not  attend  the  movies  back  home,  calmly 
sizing  up  the  wicked  antics  of  a  Moulin  Rouge, 
and  never  a  flutter.  We  must  not  conclude  that 
travellers  leave  their  morals  at  home.  They 
are  simply  playing  the  game  from  all  angles, 
and  sightseeing  covers  a  multitude  of  irreg 
ularities. 

Are  most  travellers  ill-mannered?  No — just 
a  little  fussed-up  by  the  consciousness  that  they 
are  giving  the  party  and  someone  is  holding  out 
on  the  refreshments. 

The  American  traveller  who  battles  at  all 
times  for  value  received  is  a  rarity.  Our  British 
cousin  has  been  acknowledged  champion  in 
getting  everything  that  his  ticket  called  for,  and 
a  little  plus.  Sometimes  he  seemed  to  feel  that 
the  seat  by  the  window  and  the  luggage  racks 
were  his  because  Britannia  rules  the  Waves. 
That  logic  does  not  always  appeal  to  a  Yank 
who  is  already  wearing  the  black-and-blue  sou- 


130  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

venirs  of  a  jolly  outing.  Whereupon,  the  entente 
is  strained  and  a  second  battle  of  Bunker  Hill 
seems  impending.  It  takes  more  than  a  world 
war  to  get  that  fifty-fifty  idea  accepted  by  one 
type  of  traveller. 

The  average  American  on  tour  is  reasonably 
patient  and  trying  to  worry  himself  into  having 
a  good  time.  One  trouble  with  him  is  that  he 
tries  to  be  friendly  with  subordinates  who  are 
accustomed  to  crisp  commands.  He  has  not  ac 
quired  the  adamantine  "front,"  combined  with 
the  oleaginous  savoir  faire,  which  enables  the 
crafty  old-timer  to  get  what  he  wants  without 
wrestling  for  it. 

The  American  away  from  home  is  said  to  be 
a  braggart.  This  is  one  of  those  crystallized 
misconceptions,  the  same  as  the  side  whiskers 
of  the  Englishman  and  the  ruffled  shirt  of  the 
Frenchman.  When  an  American  does  speak  up 
for  his  native  land,  perhaps  he  has  been  goaded 
beyond  endurance.  For  every  voluble  person 
there  are  three  or  four  who  are  tongue-tied  and 
lonesome  and  completely  out  of  war  paint. 

Women  get  more  enjoyment  and  profit  out 
of  travel  than  the  men  get.  Perhaps  the  very 
best  example  of  tourist  is  the  woman  who  has 
prepared  for  the  outing  by  years  of  inquiry  re- 


AWAY  FROM  HOME  131 

garding  history,  languages,  customs,  art,  archi 
tecture,  and  music.  The  only  Americans  who 
can  speak  the  foreign  languages  so  as  to  get 
along  are  the  women  and  the  college  girls. 
Their  French  is  not  the  boulevard  article,  but 
they  make  it  work.  As  for  dear  old  Father,  he 
cannot  understand  "Old."  He  has  been  joking 
Mother  for  years  about  her  club  activities,  but 
when  she  gets  him  into  the  old  cities  she  shows 
him  up.  At  least  she  knows  Michael  Angelo 
was  not  Irish,  and  can  pronounce  the  name  of 
the  hotel  so  the  driver  will  compranay. 

"Don't  Worry"  should  be  painted  on  every 
piece  of  luggage.  Travelling  together  through 
the  dark  woods  of  an  unfamiliar  region  is  the 
supreme  test  of  compatibility.  Prolonged  pro 
pinquity  induces  irritability.  Solitary  confine 
ment  with  another  person  present  is  a  terrible 
punishment.  The  greatest  risk  of  travel  arises 
from  too  much  forced  companionship.  Happy 
and  much  out  of  the  ordinary  is  the  wanderer 
who  doesn't  get  fed  up  on  his  playmates. 

We  feel  compelled  to  travel  in  groups,  and 
the  members  of  the  party  are  literally  thrown 
upon  each  other  for  hours  and  hours  at  a  time. 
Someone  has  to  manage  and  be  spokesman,  and 
if  he  can  hold  the  job  to  the  satisfaction  of  all 


132  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

the  persons  concerned,  he  is  a  seven-times 
wonder. 

If  there  is  a  "Wait-a-Minute"  in  the  bunch, 
he  or  she  can  organize  a  constant  strain  of  ill 
feeling.  Have  you  ever  met  Mr.  or  Mrs.  or 
Miss  Wait-a-Minute?  The  whole  expedition  is 
set  and  ready  to  move  and  the  marching  order 
is  given,  and  then  there  is  a  jam  and  a  madden 
ing  delay.  The  Wait-a-Minute,  after  sitting 
around  for  thirty  minutes  and  doing  nothing 
whatsoever,  has  suddenly  discovered  that  the 
post  cards  must  be  mailed,  the  camera  loaded, 
and  the  shoes  brushed  up,  and  the  handkerchief 
of  yesterday  exchanged  for  a  fresh  one,  and  the 
guide  book  unpacked,  etc.,  etc. 

If  travellers  act  loony  (and  they  do)  probably 
two  thirds  of  the  afflictions  which  threaten  to 
unhinge  reason  are  wished  upon  them  by  friends 
and  relatives.  Every  day  a  hundred  petty  prob 
lems  present  themselves.  They  are  of  no  im 
portance  whatever  except  to  an  overchafed 
imagination.  Regard  them  with  smiling  indif 
ference,  and  you  ride  over  without  a  bump.  Keep 
on  tearing  the  hair  and  wringing  the  hands  and, 
after  a  while,  every  mole  hill  will  look  like  the 
Himalaya  Mountains. 

The  happy  pilgrims  are  those  who  do  not 


AWAY  FROM  HOME  133 

attempt  to  move  in  a  herd  all  of  the  time.  The 
thing  to  do  is  to  go  bravely  up  to  your  good 
friend  and  travel  mate  and  say,  "Comrade,  I 
have  inspected  you  at  close  range  until  your 
well-known  personality  has  lost  all  the  charm 
of  novelty.  I  could  write  a  book  on  the  tech 
nique  which  you  employ  in  opening  eggs.  The 
slightly  audible  effects  which  you  originate  when 
gathering  coffee  from  the  cup  have  ceased  to 
be  music  to  my  ears.  I  know  that  your  char 
acter  is  still  unimpeachable  and  you  have  lost 
none  of  the  rugged  virtues  which  give  you  a 
high  standing  in  our  golf  club  at  home,  but  I  am 
dead  weary  of  seeing  your  Adam's  apple  in 
action.  In  other  words,  dear  friend,  you  have 
got  on  my  nerves,  and  I  have  no  doubt  whatever 
that  you  would  be  happy  to  gaze  at  a  landscape 
once  in  awhile  without  discovering  me  in  the 
foreground  wearing  the  same  old  suit  of  clothes. 
Therefore  I  suggest  that,  at  the  next  stop,  you 
go  to  the  Continent/  and  I  will  go  to  the  Bristol 
and  each  will  do  as  he  blame  pleases  for  three 
days,  and  then,  when  we  get  together  again,  we 
can  look  at  each  other  without  shuddering/' 

The  tantrums  which  the  amateur  traveller  ex 
hibits  when  he  is  far  from  home  could  be  headed 
off  if  he  would  take  a  short  course  in  Christian 


134  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

Science  before  booking  his  passage.  Drench 
your  spirit  with  a  don't-care  calm.  Acknowl 
edge,  with  a  smile,  that  the  biggest  fool  job  in 
the  world  is  to  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  in 
evitable  according  to  your  private  plans  and 
specifications.  If  you  have  become  so  ossified 
by  habit  that  you  cannot  put  up  with  the  man 
ners  and  customs  and  transportation  facilities 
and  cooking  and  cocktails  of  the  older  civiliza 
tions,  the  thing  for  you  to  do  is  to  stay  at  home 
and  watch  the  trains  go  through. 

Once  I  heard  a  man,  standing  in  front  of  the 
Cafe  de  Paris,  say  that  he  couldn't  get  anything 
to  eat  in  Paris.  He  meant  that  he  couldn't  get 
thin  beefsteak  that  had  been  pounded  with  a 
potato  masher  and  then  rolled  in  flour  and  fried 
with  onions. 

Have  you  ever  met  the  family  that  went  to 
Europe  in  search  of  culture  and  came  back  with 
the  news  that  all  the  coffee  had  chicory  in  it? 

Seeing  the  outside  world  is  the  most  diverting 
and  profitable  of  all  employments,  after  one  has 
learned  the  simple  recipe  of  sitting  back  relaxed; 
refusing  to  be  frightened  by  imaginary  pitfalls, 
and  declining  to  worry  over  some  experience 
that  is  rapidly  sliding  into  the  past  tense. 

Beyond  every  frontier  lies  a  country  which 


AWAY  FROM   HOME  135 

has  spent  many  centuries  in  arranging  its  own 
domestic  affairs  to  suit  the  resident  population. 
When  you  drop  in  from  Missouri  or  Michigan, 
the  clever  thing  to  do  is  to  accept  the  local  ar 
rangements  and  not  try  to  be  a  missionary. 

Also,  remember  that  you  are  on  a  visit  and 
not  attending  a  vaudeville  performance.  There 
is  no  need  of  exploiting  the  far-famed  nasal  ac 
cent.  You  can't  get  rid  of  it,  but  you  can  omit 
the  tin  megaphone.  Many  of  the  ladies  living 
in  Europe  twitter  instead  of  talk.  We  haven't 
many  of  the  twittering  kind  here  at  home.  Our 
women-folks  converse.  It  sounds  all  right  until 
you  hear  it  shattering  the  deathly  stillness  of 
the  salle  a  manger  somewhere  on  the  Continent, 
and  then  it  sounds  just  like  a  billboard  adver 
tisement  of  the  U.  S.  A. 

Travellers  cease  to  be  painfully  abnormal  in 
their  habits  when  they  learn  that  all  the  beaten 
paths  are  smooth,  and  all  the  arrangements  fool 
proof,  and  the  ticket  which  secures  kind  treat 
ment  is  the  friendly  spirit,  with  unfailing  cour 
tesy  attached  as  a  coupon. 

Speaking  of  the  perils  and  delights  of  a  long 
journey,  consider  the  case  of  the  woman  on  the 
veranda  at  Singapore. 

She  was  a  large  woman  and  she  sat  gazing 


136  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

seaward,  with  the  Raffles  Hotel  as  a  background. 
Her  eyes  were  red  from  weeping  and  the  hand 
kerchief  was  still  in  reserve,  but  her  grief  had 
racked  itself  down  to  a  succession  of  dry  sobs. 
She  was  almost  leaning  against  the  equator  and 
yet  her  gown  was  dark  as  to  colour  and  shaggy 
as  to  material. 

This  woman  was  just  as  far  away  from  her 
home  town  as  it  was  possible  to  be  and  still  re 
main  on  the  planet  Earth.  It  was  about  an 
eight  thousand  miles  dig  straight  through,  or 
possibly  thirteen  thousand  miles,  travelling 
either  to  the  east  or  west  by  the  established  zig 
zags  of  steamship  and  railway  routes.  She  was 
certainly  a  long  jump  from  her  own  front  porch. 
She  felt  fifty  thousand  miles  and  she  looked 
twice  that. 

Hiding  around  the  corner,  out  of  range,  sat 
the  promoter  who  had  enticed  the  weeping  lady 
from  her  corn-belt  environment  and  dragged  her 
to  faraway  lands  of  romance  and  legend  and 
mystery.  Now  he  was  trying  to  decide  what  to 
do  with  her.  He  was  offering  her  freely  to  any 
one  who  wanted  a  travelling  companion.  No 
takers. 

The  others  had  scattered  like  pigeons  in  a 
panic,  and  only  the  heavy  woman  in  black  and 


AWAY  FROM  HOME  137 

the  nerve-shaken  manager  remained  as  the 
broken  remnant  of  a  Grand  Personally  Con 
ducted  Pilgrimage  around  the  World. 

He  told  us  the  whole  story — how  he  had  in 
vestigated  all  applicants  before  making  up  the 
party  and  taken  every  precaution  to  book  only 
those  who  were  moral,  refined,  and  "congenial." 
He  couldn't  understand  why  all  of  his  plans  had 
gone  to  smash.  They  were  all  nice  people,  but 
they  had  organized  into  cliques  and  were  fight 
ing  like  panthers  before  the  boat  was  three  days 
out  from  San  Francisco.  It  was  supposed  to 
be  a  happy  family,  out  for  a  glorious  lark  in 
the  Old  World.  The  vacationers  were  to 
ride  in  rickshaws  and  gaze  at  sunsets,  and 
listen  to  temple  bells,  while  the  "Squidge" 
attended  to  all  of  those  petty  adjustments 
which  are  inseparable  from  the  business  of 
travelling. 

Explanation — "Squidge"  is  a  comic  opera 
term  for  the  menial  who  follows  the  king  about 
and  does  all  his  worrying  for  him. 

The  man  who  attempts  to  squidge  a  drove  of 
twenty  or  thirty  temperamental  tourists,  each 
one  of  whom  has  come  from  a  community  in 
which  he  or  she  is  a  mountain  rising  from  the 
plain — that  man  travels  a  thorny  path. 


138  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

What  will  be  the  verdict  of  the  W.  C.  T.  U. 
women  on  the  two  who  smoke  cigarettes? 

What  chance  has  the  Sunday-school  superin 
tendent  to  hit  it  off  with  the  poker  players? 

Think  of  the  immediate  rating  established  by 
the  woman  who  can't  play  bridge,  but  does? 

When  Sioux  City,  Iowa,  attempts  to  fraternize 
with  Hartford,  Connecticut,  what  ensues? 

Will  there  be  indignation  meetings  organized 
by  those  who  get  inside  rooms  at  the  hotels? 

If  the  Burdicks  find  that  the  Appletons  have 
a  larger  stateroom  and  are  nearer  the  bath,  and 
have  been  seated  at  the  captain's  table,  will 
they  suffer  in  silence?  They  will,  until  they 
can  find  someone  to  listen. 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  Messrs. 
Cook  and  Raymond  and  Whitcomb  were  out  to 
shatter  the  two  world  records  held  for  many 
centuries  by  Job  and  Solomon. 

I  would  rather  mobilize  an  army  of  five  hun 
dred  thousand  men  and  march  it  over  the  Alps 
in  the  dead  of  winter  than  attempt  personally  to 
conduct  twenty-five  of  my  countrymen  to  Eu 
rope  and  back. 

The  reason  being  that  when  you  take  an  adult 
of  set  habits  and  uproot  him  from  all  of  his 
filamentary  local  connections  and  get  him  out- 


AWAY  FROM  HOME  139 

side  of  his  regular  zone  of  influence,  he  ceases  to 
function  and  begins  to  flop. 

When  the  catfish  gets  away  from  the  tadpoles 
and  the  shady  spot  under  the  willows  and  keeps 
on  swimming  until  he  is  out  in  the  ocean,  sur 
rounded  by  sharks,  octopi,  and  mermaids,  he  is 
a  sorry  exhibit  and  knows  it. 

The  man  far  from  home  is  put  to  a  brand- 
new  occupation — that  of  sight-seeing,  alternat 
ing,  possibly,  with  periods  of  sea  travel,  which 
are  supposed  to  be  given  over  to  absolute  rest. 
It  takes  him  a  long  time  to  find  out  that  sight 
seeing  is  the  hardest  work  in  the  world  and, 
when  overdone,  an  expensive  drain  on  nervous 
energy.  As  for  absolute  rest,  he  regards  that  as 
a  crime.  There  will  be  plenty  of  time  for  rest 
ing  after  one  arrives  at  the  cemetery. 

Returning  to  the  woman  who  was  wearing  her 
winter  stuff  in  Singapore.  Somewhere  back 
yonder  she  had  been  a  small-town  pillar  of 
society.  The  recently  departed  had  left  her  in 
possession  of  a  comfortable  house  of  the  Hayes 
and  Wheeler  period.  She  had  money  in  the 
bank  and  was  a  guiding  influence  in  club  life 
and  her  spiced  watermelon  rinds  had  received 
many  encomiums. 

She  was  a  reader  of  books  and  magazines  and 


140  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

was  not  entirely  numb  to  the  calls  of  romance 
and  adventure.  She  had  aspirations.  A  woman 
without  positive  aspirations  never  would  have 
arrived  at  the  Raffles  Hotel,  Singapore. 

It  has  become  quite  the  fashion  for  those  who 
think  they  are  sophisticated  travellers  to  rag 
and  ridicule  the  bewildered  first-timers  who  are 
stumbling  their  way  through  foreign  lands. 

"Where  do  they  come  from?"  you  hear. 
"Why  does  it  happen  that  all  the  yaps  in  the 
world  suddenly  made  up  their  minds  to  go  trav 
elling  this  year?  How,  may  I  inquire,  do  they 
get  that  way?  We  never  see  such  freak  speci 
mens  back  home!" 

The  answer  being,  of  course,  that  they  are  not 
freaks  or  yaps  until  they  are  violently  separated 
from  the  local  routines,  the  established  connec 
tions,  the  fixed  habits  of  eating  and  drinking  and 
recreation,  and  all  the  other  regularities  of  some 
placid  and  wind-shielded  community. 

But  remember  this:  When  you  bump  against 
the  American  barbarian  in  Tokio  or  Cairo  or 
Interlaken,  and  marvel  at  his  gawkeries  and  get 
ready  to  label  him  "Impossible,"  always  take 
into  consideration  that  if  he  hadn't  been  willing 
to  plan  far  ahead  and  make  real  sacrifices  and 
endure  hardships  in  order  to  travel  and  find  out 


AWAY  FROM  HOME  141 

about  the  world  and  add  a  few  cubits  to  his 
stature,  he  wouldn't  be  there  at  all ! 

The  woman  at  Singapore  was  a  comedy  figure, 
but  also  she  was  the  emblem  of  blasted  hopes. 
The  rating  which  she  had  laboriously  established 
back  in  Whiffletree  did  not  help  her  when  she 
joined  the  other  circumnavigators.  They  never 
had  seen  her  house  with  the  pillars  in  front  or 
read  the  evening  paper  accounts  of  the  fetes  on 
her  "spacious  lawn."  When  the  factions  began 
to  form,  she  was  marooned.  Finally,  the  trav 
ellers  became  so  weary  of  looking  at  one  an 
other  and  putting  up  with  the  maddening  social 
errors  of  their  unspeakable  countrymen,  that 
they  revolted  and  demanded  refunds,  and 
every  separate  group  hied  off  by  itself,  leaving 
the  haggard  manager  and  the  panic-stricken 
widow  camped  on  the  veranda  of  the  Raffles 
Hotel. 

He  offered  her  money  and  transportation,  but 
she  refused  them.  She  could  not  travel  alone. 
She  had  been  promised  an  escort  to  protect  and 
advise  her,  so  she  sat  and  wept  and  held  out  for 
the  terms  of  the  contract.  When  we  sailed  for 
Hong  Kong  she  was  still  there,  and  the  manager 
was  waiting  for  a  steamer  and  gradually  sub 
merging  his  Chautauqua  habits  under  Scotch 


142  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

whisky.  That's  no  way  to  wind  up  a  story,  but 
the  point  of  the  episode  is  that  the  woman  was 
a  picturesque  and  aggravated  example  of  the 
Yankee  abroad. 

She  never  had  coached  herself  to  be  adaptable 
and  accept  new  conditions  with  an  amiable  phi 
losophy. 

She  found  herself  computing  by  the  Adams 
County  standards  of  weights  and  measures. 

Every  new  traveller  far  from  home  is  a  victim 
of  Fear.  That  is  why  his  manners  and  his  men 
tal  processes  become  temporarily  abnormal  and 
he  falls  under  the  ridicule  of  those  who  are  sit 
ting  at  ease,  in  their  accustomed  environment, 
watching  him  perform. 

One  kind  of  traveller  yields  abjectly  to  this 
fear  engendered  by  strange  surroundings.  He 
acknowledges  the  hopelessness  of  the  situation, 
and  becomes  dumb  and  unresisting.  He  holds 
out  a  handful  of  money  to  the  shopkeeping  ban 
dit  and  says:  "Take  what  you  want." 

Another  kind  tries  to  hide  his  fear  under 
a  loud  combativeness.  Battling  with  strange 
weapons,  and  not  knowing  any  of  the  rules  of 
the  game,  he  still  hopes  that  he  may  exhibit 
enough  of  the  conquering  American  spirit  to 
save  him  from  utter  humiliation.  He  demands 


AWAY  FROM  HOME  143 

itemized  statements,  and  is  much  given  to  put 
ting  down  in  a  small  book  the  names  and  num 
bers  of  cab  drivers  who  overcharge  him.  He 
tells  those  who  are  plucking  him  that  he  knows 
the  American  consul.  They  are  seldom  thrilled 
by  the  information.  He  gives  himself  a  good 
many  unhappy  minutes  and  loses  more  battles 
than  he  wins,  but,  at  least,  he  is  entitled  to  the 
credit  of  trying  to  prove  that  not  over  ninety- 
nine  per  cent,  of  the  migratory  Americans  are 
movable  targets  and  that  any  one  is  welcome  to 
take  a  shot. 

Then  there  is  the  kind  who  tries  to  conceal  all 
the  misgivings  and  trepidations  under  an  hys 
terical  affectation  of  gayety.  The  kind  who 
speaks  out  freely  in  order  to  prove  that  he  or 
she  is  not  to  be  smothered  under  the  formalities 
of  the  table  d'hote.  Whereupon,  the  French 
eyebrow  is  elevated  and  the  mackerel  eye  of 
Merrie  England  becomes  even  more  glazed  than 
usual,  and  the  speaker  is  classified  "as  one  of 
those  dreadful  Americans." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  speaker  isn't  dreadful 
at  all.  Just  a  little  agitated  and  beating  against 
the  bars.  Indulging  in  a  high-strung  reaction 
against  the  chilling  regulations  of  an  over-ripe 
civilization. 


144  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

The  American  in  a  strange  country  is  cer 
tainly  a  ruffied-up  and  fluttery  bird  of  passage. 
But,  like  the  erring  sister  in  the  sentimental 
song,  he  is  "more  to  be  pitied  than  cen 
sured." 


ORATORY 

WE  SEE  twelve  good  men  and  true 
assembled  in  one  corner  of  the  court 
room. 

After  they  have  been  reduced  to  emotional 
irresponsibility  by  the  maddening  inconsequen- 
tialities  of  a  tedious  trial,  the  imported  hypno- 
tizer  stands  before  them. 

He  massages  their  primitive  sensibilities  with 
strange  incantations  until  they  are  mentally  and 
spiritually  disintegrated  to  the  consistency  of 
corn-meal  mush. 

He  quavers  and  trills  to  them  about  their 
gray-haired  mothers  and  little  children  kneel 
ing  down  at  night  to  pray  and  the  dear  old  flag 
and  the  dying  soldier  boy. 

Even  as  the  Hindu  charms  the  snake  with  a 
droning  wind-instrument. 

All  of  the  stage  groupings  and  the  soft  lights 
and  the  off-stage  music  which  produce  sure-fire 
effects  in  the  theatrical  realms  of  Bunk  and 
Folderol  are  used  with  Belasco  cunning.  The 

145 


146  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

proceedings  have  to  do  with  almost  everything 
except  the  brutal  facts  of  the  killing  of  a  de 
fenseless  citizen. 

After  a  time  the  premises  are  salty  wet. 

The  assassin  is  turned  loose — a  bouquet  in  his 
hand. 

The  collapsed  jurors  are  taken  to  their  homes 
in  ambulances. 

And  the  rhetorical  necromancer  who  has  ef 
fected  this  monstrous  perversion  of  justice  is,  in 
a  more  magnified  measure  than  ever  before,  the 
superman  of  the  neighbourhood. 

The  old-time  colossi  of  the  criminal  courts 
represented  the  full  flower  of  the  age  of  ora 
tory. 

The  word-paintings  which  charmed  the  lach 
rymose  agriculturists  are  now  easily  identified 
as  chromos. 

No  Hall  of  Fame  for  the  late  celebrities  who 
merely  specialized  on  mesmeric  oratory. 

They  surrounded  Truth  with  verbal  smoke 
screens. 

They  set  up  false  gods  and  hung  wreaths  on 
them. 

They  were  he-sirens,  forever  leading  simple 
tons  off  into  the  bogs. 

The  glorified  spellbinder  lost  his  job  when 


ORATORY  147 

men  began  to  read  and  meditate  instead  of  relax 
the  lower  jaw  and  listen. 

For  many  decades  our  susceptible  sires  handed 
the  affairs  of  that  huge  business  institution 
known  as  The  United  States  of  America  over 
to  ornamental  song-birds  wearing  long-tailed 
coats. 

Men  got  into  Congress  because  they  possessed 
the  mountebank's  gift  of  emitting  musical 
sounds. 

The  national  emblem  should  have  been  a 
thrush,  instead  of  an  eagle. 

The  orator  lived  upon  applause.  He  wanted 
the  noisy  approbation  of  the  moment. 

The  "art"  of  which  he  was  so  proud  easily 
degenerated  into  a  bundle  of  cheap  tricks — a 
collection  of  tremolos  and  mechanical  apostro 
phes  and  conventional  gestures. 

He  departed  without  causing  any  vacancy  be 
cause  his  entity  was  mostly  atmospheric.  The 
curse  of  his  example  still  rests  upon  us  lightly. 
His  lineal  descendants  are  concocting  "art 
titles"  for  the  movies. 


GOLF 

WE  WHO  live  so  near  the  controlling 
population  of  the  Middle  West  that 
we  are  jarred  by  its  thought  waves 
carried  an  important  message  into  the  cities  a 
few  years  ago.  We  told  our  friends  in  the 
crowded  streets  to  make  ready  for  the  big 
drought. 

"What  drought?" 

'The  supreme,  climacteric,  eventual  drought 
of  all  time.  The  whole  country  is  going  dry." 

One  listener  would  break  into  raucous  laugh 
ter.  Another  would  gaze  in  pitying  silence.  A 
third  would  blister  the  prophet  with  the  most 
approved  invective  of  the  boulevards.  No  one, 
except  those  who  had  been  in  communication 
with  the  sovereign,  trouble-making  voters,  be 
lieved  that  an  influential  city  club  could  be  de 
terred  from  having  highballs  on  the  table  and  a 
good  song  ringing  clear. 

Those  who  regarded  the  drinking  of  a  cock 
tail  as  an  amiable  preliminary  to  dining  could 

148 


GOLF  149 

not  or  would  not  understand  that  a  majority  of 
their  fellow  citizens  regarded  the  drinking  of  a 
cocktail  as  a  crime,  the  same  as  blowing  a  safe 
or  beating  a  crippled  child. 

The  verdict  on  alcoholic  stimulants  had  been 
voted  and  the  jury  was  in  the  box  before  the 
city  folks  learned  that  any  indictment  had  been 
drawn. 

They  told  themselves  that  a  metropolis  could 
not  be  regulated  during  play  hours  by  R.  F.  D. 
routes.  They  were  like  the  chair  warmers  in  a 
brokerage  office,  who  never  believe  in  a  panic 
until  after  it  arrives. 

Those  of  us  who  predicted  nation-wide  prohi 
bition  happened  to  be  standing  where  we  could 
see  the  thing  coming.  Our  view  of  the  funnel- 
shaped  cloud  was  not  obstructed  by  tall  build 
ings  and  crowds  of  people.  We  had  observed 
the  slow,  cumulative  growth  of  a  sentiment 
which  was  inexorable  and  irresistible. 

First,  the  farming  townships  went  dry.  Then 
the  small  towns  surrounded  by  the  farm  lands 
went  dry.  Next  the  counties  were  cleaned  up. 
The  saloons  scurried  like  rabbits  and  took  refuge 
in  the  smaller  cities.  Again  they  were  smoked 
out.  Then  the  fighting  was  transferred  from 
courthouses  to  statehouses.  Members  of  the 


150  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

state  legislatures  began  to  read  the  signs  in  the 
sky.  They  threw  up  pinches  of  dry  grass  to  see 
which  way  the  wind  was  blowing.  And  they 
got  wise. 

How  often  have  we  heard  some  puffing  gram 
pus  in  a  city  club  say  that  prohibition  was 
sneaked  through  while  the  boys  were  in  France; 
that  a  fanatical  minority  outwitted  a  somnolent 
majority;  that  the  Anti-Saloon  League  hypno 
tized  and  bulldozed  a  lot  of  feeble-minded  law 
makers  who  were  not  alive  to  their  responsibili 
ties. 

Oh,  mush!  When  an  ex-preacher  with  a 
white  necktie  compels  a  hard-boiled  politician 
to  sit  up  and  bark  and  roll  over  and  play  dead, 
it  is  not  because  he  is  Svengali,  but  because  he 
carries  a  gun.  The  coercive  methods  of  the 
Anti-Saloon  League  were  effective  because  con 
gressmen  and  state  legislators  were  deadly  afraid 
of  the  weapons  carried  by  the  League.  And  they 
wouldn't  have  been  afraid  of  these  weapons  if 
they  hadn't  already  checked  up  the  sentiment 
regarding  "booze"  in  every  precinct  which  they 
represented.  They  signed  any  kind  of  a  pledge 
put  in  front  of  them  because  they  had  the  trem 
bles  every  time  they  thought  of  the  farmer  vote 
and  the  church  vote  and  the  imminent  votes  for 


GOLF  151 

women.  A  lot  of  them  would  just  as  willingly 
have  voted  for  wood  alcohol  in  order  to  save 
their  various  little  one-cylinder,  sheet-iron  po 
litical  machines. 

The  man  responsible  for  the  dry  tidal  wave  is 
the  bright  lad  who  first  suggested  that  the  opin 
ions  of  the  majority  shall  govern  the  behaviour 
of  the  minority. 

The  crushing  leverage  of  the  Anti-Saloon 
League  began  to  be  felt  as  soon  as  it  had  defi 
nitely  lined  up  a  good  healthy  reserve  in  addi 
tion  to  the  fifty  per  cent.  Those  who  took  the 
trouble  to  find  out  what  people  in  the  country 
and  in  the  small  towns  were  thinking  knew  that 
the  reserve  was  there,  waiting  to  take  orders, 
and  that  J.  Barleycorn  was  already  in  the  death 
chamber.  So  we  stated  the  facts  with  a  good 
deal  of  certainty,  and  ever  since  we  have  been 
pulling  on  our  city  friends  the  most  disagreeable 
combination  of  words  in  the  English  language, 
viz.,  "I  told  you  so." 

The  gift  of  prophecy  has  gone  to  our  heads. 
If  we  dally  further  with  a  tricky  trade  it  is  be 
cause  our  predictions  worked  out  to  the  very  last 
item. 

The  real  trick  of  horoscoping  is  to  reveal 
something  that  has  already  come  out  of  the  hat. 


152  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

The  wise  clairvoyant  is  a  private  detective.  If 
the  Hoosiers  knew  about  prohibition  months 
before  it  impacted  itself  upon  the  simple  urban- 
ites  who  stand  around  the  corner  of  Forty-second 
and  Broadway,  it  was  because  they  were  up  the 
road  to  meet  the  parade. 

If  I  now  attempt  another  prophecy  in  regard 
to  a  revolutionary  change  which  is  ominously 
spreading  from  the  important  centres  of  popu 
lation  toward  every  little  town,  I  proceed  with  a 
good  deal  of  confidence,  because  I  have  been 
over  the  territory  which  is  undergoing  the 
change.  That's  the  safe  bet!  Wait  until  the 
thing  has  happened  and  then  announce  that  it  is 
going  to  happen. 

When  prohibition  was  impending,  the  alarm 
had  to  be  carried  from  the  villages  to  the  large 
cities.  Now  that  golf  is  getting  ready  to  per 
meate,  the  startling  news  must  be  carried  from 
the  congested  apartment  buildings  out  to  the 
placid  hamlets.  The  time  has  come  to  stand 
forth  on  the  Main  Street  of  every  settlement 
with  a  population  running  into  four  figures  and 
shout  a  warning. 

Do  you  remember  the  pleasant  thrill  and  the 
shuddering  expectancy  that  caught  you  when 
the  solitary  horseman,  far  out  in  advance,  called 


GOLF  153 

to  the  multitude,  "Look  out  for  your  horses. 
The  elephants  are  coming." 

The  moment  has  now  arrived  to  say,  "Look 
out  for  your  husbands!  Golf  is  coming!" 

Of  course  the  easy-going  towns  and  the  sun 
drenched  lanes  are  not  going  to  be  stirred  by  the 
first  shrill  cry.  History  does  not  go  into  detail, 
but  we  may  safely  guess  that  even  along  the 
Paul  Revere  route  a  majority  of  the  annoyed 
Colonials  merely  turned  over  and  went  to  sleep 
again. 

The  incredulity,  the  mirth,  and  even  the  con 
tumely  aroused  by  the  prohibition  prophecies  of 
ten  years  ago  will  now  be  visited  upon  the  first 
golfing  Saint  Johns  to  begin  talking  in  the  wil 
derness.  They  will  be  told  that  they  are  crazy 
with  the  heat  and  numb  above  the  collar  but 
ton.  Even  the  thousands  of  male  persons  al 
ready  selected  by  the  logic  of  events  and  the 
circumstances  of  their  environment  to  become 
happy  victims  of  golf  will  boast  of  their  igno 
rance  of  the  game  and  pooh-pooh  the  sugges 
tion  that  it  may  become  a  lure  to  them.  Wait 
and  see.  Even  the  "flu"  victim  is  always  sur 
prised  to  find  himself  included  in  the  epidemic. 

The  prophecy  toward  which  we  are  pream 
bling  is  that  golf,  hitherto  regarded  as  an  ad- 


154  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

junct  to  the  society  column  and  holding  no 
interest  except  for  city  dwellers,  is  going  to 
carry  its  fluttering  flags  to  countless  dales  and 
hillsides,  and  become  a  life-saving  diversion  for 
small  towns  in  every  part  of  the  United 
States. 

Numerous  millions  of  dollars  will  be  expended 
within  the  next  decade  for  tees  and  fairways  and 
greens  and  traps  and  waterpipes  and  mowers. 

Myriads  of  business  and  professional  men  re 
siding  in  county  seats  and  their  neighbouring 
satellites  are  going  to  attire  themselves  in 
shameless  knickers  and  shortsleeved  shirts  and 
renew  their  youth  in  the  green  fields  and  beside 
the  still  waters. 

Men  who  are  too  old  for  tennis  and  baseball, 
and  too  masculine  for  croquet,  and  too  negli 
gent  to  hold  themselves  to  any  drudging  routine 
of  "exercises,"  are  going  to  find  in  golf  a  real 
elixir  of  youth — the  only  golden  panacea  that 
will  bring  back  a  has-been. 

They  are  going  to  come  out  of  their  slouching 
laziness  and  have  springs  put  into  their  legs. 

One  of  the  popular  delusions,  fostered  by 
careless  poetry  and  loose  editorial  writing,  has 
been  that  the  people  who  live  in  the  country  and 
the  small  towns  are  necessarily  more  rugged  and 


GOLF  155 

rosy-cheeked  and  surging  with  vitality  than  the 
flat-dwellers  of  the  cities.  Look  at  the  mor 
tality  statistics.  Study  the  death  rates.  Ask 
the  insurance  men  and  the  school  authorities 
and  the  hospitals. 

Country  air  is  no  good  if  it  is  kept  outdoors. 
Wholesome  food  can  be  converted  into  an  ex 
plosive  if  cooked  in  the  right  kind  of  grease. 
Much  sleep  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  substitute 
for  the  shower  bath.  Most  of  our  country  rela 
tives  who  are  walking  with  canes  and  praying 
for  relief  from  racking  pains  are  simply  in  need 
of  the  dentist. 

No  man  ever  acquired  bodily  vigour  by  re 
maining  away  from  the  cities.  And  no  other 
man  can  be  as  old  at  forty-five  as  the  small 
town  business  or  professional  man  who  lets 
down  and  loses  his  hold  on  outdoor  activities 
and  starts  to  take  things  easy.  He  will  become 
fat  and  slow  and  ponderous  and  creaky — enjoy 
ing  no  intermediate  stage  between  youth  and 
old  age. 

Suppose  he  is  a  banker  or  a  merchant  or  a 
lawyer  or  a  grain  buyer  in  some  town  large 
enough  to  have  a  couple  of  movie  theatres  and 
paved  streets.  It  is  a  good  town,  but  it  is  set 
to  a  slow  tempo.  The  prominent  citizen  we  are 


156  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

considering  will  live  three  or  four  blocks  from 
his  place  of  business.  If  he  walks  down  town 
in  the  morning  the  chances  are  that  he  will  ad 
just  himself  to  the  moping  gait  of  those  who 
are  headed  in  the  same  direction.  Or  he  may, 
in  order  to  avoid  even  the  pretense  of  limbering 
up,  ride  down  in  the  family  "jit"  and  leave  it 
parked  out  in  front.  He  visits  the  post-office 
and  pauses  on  the  corner  to  talk  about  nothing 
in  particular.  His  principal  occupation  during 
the  whole  day,  next  to  that  of  garnering  a  few 
dollars,  is  to  avoid  getting  his  blood  into  circu 
lation.  If  it  is  winter,  his  office  will  be  fright 
fully  overheated,  and  he  will  intensify  the  at 
mosphere  of  comfort  by  smoking  a  few  cigars. 
His  days  are  devoted  to  heavy  sitting  around  in 
doors.  Does  he  tramp  across  country  with  a 
gun,  or  heroically  work  in  the  garden  whenever 
he  can,  or  go  horseback  riding?  Not  one  in  one 
hundred  does  anything  of  the  sort.  He  is  too 
busy  laying  the  foundations  of  "rheumatism" 
and  "stomach  trouble" — twin  Bolsheviki  of  the 
corporeal  organism. 

Coming  right  down  to  it,  what  would  you  do 
for  recreation  and  outdoor  excitement  if  you 
were  Mr.  Business  Man  of  Oak  Grove  or  Hick 
ory  Centre?  You  would  do  the  same  as  he 


GOLF  157 

does — become  logy  and  lazy,  and  satisfy  your 
conscience  by  riding  out  in  the  car  each  evening 
for  "a  breath  of  fresh  air." 

One  of  the  reasons  why  golf  is  going  to  the 
small  towns,  to  remain  there,  is  that  countless 
thousands  of  small-towners  need  it,  and  it  is  the 
only  open-air  game  which  will  appeal  to  them 
forever  and  ever. 

You  have  heard  it  called  a  "rich  man's 
game."  That  is  because  so  many  clubs  adja 
cent  to  big  cities  have  to  use  a  lot  of  fancy  real 
estate,  and  are  extravagant  in  the  management 
of  the  clubhouse  and  the  course,  and  pay  fancy 
salaries.  The  dues  and  assessments  in  many 
of  these  clubs  have  terrified  the  player  of  moder 
ate  means.  In  the  meantime,  the  little  nine- 
hole  clubs  in  the  smaller  towns  have  continued 
to  do  business.  The  public  courses,  operated  by 
municipalities  and  usually  charging  a  small 
playing  fee,  are  congested  with  players  from 
dawn  until  dusk. 

In  Scotland  the  clerk  or  mill  hand  returns 
from  his  work  at  5:30  p.  M.  or  thereabouts, 
has  his  tea  and  seed  cake,  and  goes  out  on  the 
"links"  and  plays  18  holes,  for  the  twilight 
does  not  thicken  until  after  nine  o'clock.  He 
has  his  supper  after  the  game.  A  set  of  clubs 


158  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

will  last  him  for  years.  He  will  average  several 
rounds  to  every  ball  used  up.  Would  Scotland 
tolerate  a  game  intended  for  spendthrifts?  Don't 
ask  foolish  questions. 

With  the  gradual  cutting  down  of  the  work 
ing  day  in  America,  the  Saturday  half-holidays, 
the  dull  intervals  in  both  factory  and  farm 
towns,  when  all  business  is  condensed  into  a 
few  "rush  hours"  each  week,  don't  you  see  that 
we  have  thousands  of  men  and  women  of  all 
ages  who  will  be  candidates  for  golf  every  sum 
mer  afternoon  and  evening?  Furthermore,  for 
these  house  dwellers  to  get  into  the  free  open, 
with  the  springy  turf  under  their  feet,  and  the 
green  stretches  ahead  of  them  and  the  ecstasy 
of  contest  tugging  at  their  hearts — it  will  be  a 
God's  blessing  to  every  one  of  them. 

The  hard  roads  and  the  multiplication  of 
moderate-priced  cars  have  squeezed  the  rural 
communities  into  a  close  brotherhood.  Every 
man  who  lives  within  twenty  miles  of  a  golf 
course  can  get  from  his  desk  to  the  first  tee 
within  an  hour.  The  city  man  with  member 
ship  in  a  suburban  or  country  club  will  average 
at  least  an  hour  from  his  office  to  the  clubhouse. 
Therefore,  when  you  figure  on  supporting  mem 
berships  for  clubs  that  will  soon  be  organized 


GOLF  159 

you  must  understand  that  the  town  fifteen  miles 
away  is  just  the  same  as  across  the  street. 

And  when  golf  once  gets  into  a  community 
it  isn't  a  flare-up  that  fades  away,  like  archery 
or  ping-pong.  It  becomes  as  intrinsic  as  the 
mating  instinct  and  as  perennial  as  the  Masonic 
fraternity.  The  blamed  thing  isn't  a  "game" 
at  all.  It  is  a  life  work.  When  a  man  conse 
crates  himself  to  it,  he  is  liable  to  slacken  up 
on  all  other  obligations.  That  is  why  it  is  in 
order  to  announce:  "Look  out  for  your  hus 
bands!  Golf  is  coming." 

Returning  to  our  text  and  hammering  it  in, 
point  by  point,  after  the  manner  of  theologians, 
golf  is  going  to  take  up  a  permanent  residence 
in  the  provinces,  because  there  aren't  any  prov 
inces  any  more.  The  boulevard  highways  and 
the  wife-driven  flivvers,  to  which  reference  has 
been  made,  and  the  long-distance  'phone  and  the 
R.  F.  D.,  and  the  mail-order  catalogues,  have 
made  every  farming  township  a  suburb  of  the 
city.  The  man  in  the  country  who  has  money 
will  spend  it  for  electric  lights,  tailor-made 
clothes,  grapefruit,  Galli-Curci  records — also 
fancy  chocolates  and  bonbons  mixed  at  one  dol 
lar  per  throw.  When  it  becomes  evident  to  him 
that  golf  is  a  reasonable  luxury  to  which  he  is 


160  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

entitled,  he  is  not  going  to  balk  because  of 
money  considerations. 

Don't  overlook  the  fact  that  the  folks  who 
live  in  the  small  towns  are  more  closely  upon 
the  heels  of  new  events  than  ever  before.  One 
month  after  Mr.  Ziegfeld  produces  a  new  "Fol 
lies"  in  New  York,  all  of  the  young  folks  in  our 
neighbourhood  will  be  dancing  to  the  latest 
tunes  invented  by  Gene  Buck  and  Irving  Berlin 
and  appraising  their  relative  merits. 

Do  you  know  that  late  in  the  nineties  there 
was  a  sudden  and  terrific  increase  in  attendance 
at  all  colleges  and  universities,  especially  west 
of  the  Alleghanies?  There  are  five  times  as 
many  college-bred  men  and  women  living  in  the 
rural  communities  of  America  as  there  were  in 
1890.  In  the  townships  near  my  post  of  obser 
vation  there  must  be  ten  times  as  many.  Most 
of  these  ex-collegians  do  not  believe  that  they 
must  move  into  the  cities  in  order  to  be  suc 
cessful  and  happy.  A  great  many  of  them  are 
farming,  on  a  large  scale  and  according  to  most 
revolutionary  methods.  They  are  just  as  alert 
and  up-to-date  and  receptive  to  live  proposi 
tions  as  their  classmates  who  took  to  the  large 
cities.  They  read  magazines  of  the  right  kind. 
They  know  what  is  happening  in  all  parts  of  the 


GOLF  161 

world.  Any  one  who  classes  them  as  "yaps" 
proves  that  he  has  a  Sunday  supplement  educa 
tion. 

Now,  the  fact  that  community  leaders  every 
where  have  begun  to  inquire  about  the  Scotch 
invasion,  and  to  wonder  if  it  will  take  in  their 
neighbourhood  eventually,  is  the  best  possible 
evidence  that  golf  courses  will  hereafter  multi 
ply  on  an  increased  ratio.  Those  who  do  not 
wish  to  be  tempted  and  fall  must  refrain  from 
flirting  with  golf  even  in  their  day  dreams. 
The  investigator  first  endures,  then  pities,  and 
then  falls  hard.  The  tantalizing  cajoleries  and 
postponed  realizations  can  hardly  be  described 
to  those  who  know  of  golf  merely  as  a  sweeping 
blow  at  a  small  ball  with  a  slender  implement 
made  of  iron  and  wood.  They  must  find  out 
for  themselves,  and  then  it  will  be  too  late. 
Fooling  with  golf  is  like  taking  hypodermic  in 
jections  of  morphia  just  to  find  out  if  there  is  a 
resulting  sensation — only  you  finish  in  a  locker- 
room  instead  of  a  sanitarium. 

Golf  is  catholic  in  appeal,  the  same  as  rag 
time,  high-heeled  shoes,  and  chewing  gum.  It 
is  like  the  black  locust,  growing  bravely  wher 
ever  it  is  planted. 

In  any  community  that  has  a  population  of 


162  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

regular  human  beings  who  are  not  hard  up  for 
money,  and  who  can  steal  a  little  time  from  the 
treadmill,  the  conditions  are  already  ripe  for 
the  organization  of  a  country  club  which  shall 
be  a  live  social  centre  and  a  grand  rejuvenator 
for  all  those  who  are  becoming  attached  to  their 
shells  and  sufferings  from  atrophy  of  the  spirit 
of  youth. 

The  greens  are  eighty  per  cent,  of  a  golf 
course.  You  can  have  a  tall  flag  pole,  and  a 
pillared  palace  for  your  social  doings,  and  a 
Scotch  "pro"  with  knotty  wrists  and  a  Harry 
Lauder  dialect,  and  the  most  beautiful  young 
women  of  the  countryside  pouring  tea  on  the 
veranda,  and  comfortable  benches  at  every  tee, 
and  alluring  vistas  of  trees  and  water  and 
spangled  wild  flowers,  but  if  you  haven't  true 
and  velvety  greens  on  which  the  little  pellet 
will  speed  straight  from  the  club  without  jump 
or  deviation,  you  will  have  no  moral  right  to 
advertise  your  social  organization  as  a  golf 
club.  You  will  simply  be  a  promoter  of  pro 
fanity  and  a  procurer  for  the  lower  regions. 

On  every  course  the  tees  should  be  neat  and 
well  surfaced,  the  boxes  cleanly  painted  and 
always  supplied  with  good  sand,  the  direction 
flags  fresh  every  season,  the  greens  ready  for 


GOLF  163 

putting.  When  a  man  is  playing  golf  he  shouldn't 
be  called  upon  to  look  at  anything  displeasing, 
except  the  fellow  who  is  licking  him. 

To  make  the  turn  at  the  far  end  of  a  golf 
course  and  then,  starting  homeward,  to  look  out 
across  the  spread  of  vivid  green,  the  matted  hill 
ocks  gleaming  on  one  side  and  shadowed  on  the 
other,  the  trim  fairways  contrasting  sharply 
with  the  jungled  neglect  of  the  "rough/'  every 
line  of  vision  saved  by  some  attractive  interrup 
tion  before  it  dares  to  become  monotonous;  just 
enough  movement  by  white-clad  players  to  put 
a  touch  of  life  into  an  otherwise  sleeping  pano 
rama — it  is  great!  It  is,  unless  you  happen 
to  miss  your  drive,  in  which  case  the  whole  pic 
ture  resembles  one  of  Gustave  Dore's  illustra 
tions  of  Dante's  "Inferno." 

If  you  are  going  in  for  golf,  and  of  course 
you  are  if  you  get  a  chance,  use  your  influence  to 
make  the  local  course  a  delight  to  the  eye.  Golf 
is  play,  even  if  it  does  look  like  work,  and  the 
scientists  are  right  in  urging  that  we  keep  our 
souls  in  condition  by  leaning  up  against  the  true 
and  the  beautiful.  The  confirmed  golfer  feels  a 
boyish  happiness  when  he  stands  at  the  first  tee 
of  a  well-planned  and  well-maintained  course. 
He  is  impatient  for  the  feel  of  the  turf  under  his 


164  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

heavy  shoes  and  the  unfolding  charms  of  the 
successive  avenues,  each  picturesquely  differ 
ent  from  the  preceding,  and  arousing  within  him 
a  tingling  hope  of  glory  to  be  achieved. 

It  is  true  that  he  may  come  in  a  couple  of 
hours  later  walking  on  his  knee  caps  and  putting 
the  duffer's  curse  on  Saint  Andrew,  but  all  that 
temporary  grief  is  merely  incidental  to  the  ca 
reer.  The  heartbreaks  are  quite  transitory,  and 
next  day  the  struggler  is  back  in  the  locker- 
room  putting  on  his  gayest  duds  and  straining 
at  the  leash,  because  at  last  the  day  has  arrived 
on  which  he  is  going  to  sting  the  ball  and  give  it 
a  ride,  somewhat  after  the  manner  of  Harry 
Vardon. 

The  man  who  wrote  'The  Pleasures  of  Hope" 
must  have  been  an  early  golfer.  Likewise,  the 
writing  person  who  said  something  about  "Of 
all  sad  words,"  etc.,  might  have  received  his  in 
spiration  by  listening  in  at  the  nineteenth  hole. 

It  is  a  game  of  restraint,  of  relaxation,  of  calm 
concentration,  of  easy  and  deliberate  planning, 
instead  of  mere  smashing  through  by  youthful 
strength.  That  is  why  the  man  of  seventy  will 
often  trim  his  grandson  of  twenty,  who  prides 
himself  on  being  an  "athlete."  You  can't  get 
anywhere  in  golf  merely  by  having  lumps  on 


GOLF  165 

your  arms.  You  need  a  judgment  of  distance, 
a  sense  of  rhythm,  the  temperament  of  a  China 
man  and  a  trained  coordination  of  muscles  and 
nerves. 

The  man  who  has  played  for  thirty  years 
still  feels  that  he  is  standing  on  the  outskirts  of 
golf  waiting  for  someone  to  hand  him  a  ticket 
of  admission. 

Because  golfing  skill  is  elusive  and  usually  in 
the  future  tense,  the  game  never  loses  zest  and 
no  one  ever  put  it  aside  as  something  accom 
plished  and  done  \vith. 

And  then,  best  of  all,  coming  back  to  the  prin 
cipal  asset  of  the  game — it  is  the  only  outdoor 
pastime  which  middle-aged  and  elderly  men 
may  play  with  abiding  interest  for  hours  at  a 
time  at  almost  any  season  of  the  year. 

It  is  the  only  game  which  is  an  absolute  diver 
sion.  The  player  who  follows  that  ball  down 
the  course,  eager  to  get  it  into  that  tricky  little 
cup,  forgets  everything  else  except  the  methods 
to  be  employed  in  arriving  at  the  flag.  If  he 
has  a  note  falling  due  next  day  and  sinks  a  putt 
from  off  the  green,  he  feels  just  as  happy  as  the 
man  who  is  holding  the  note — possibly  happier. 

Golf  leads  one  away  from  domestic  vexations 
and  business  worries.  Sometimes  the  remedy 


166  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

is  almost  as  agonizing  as  the  ailment,  but  at 
least  the  game  differentiates  our  tribulations 
and  adds  the  spice  of  variety. 

Even  those  who  become  hopeless  addicts  are 
seldom  able  to  explain  why  golf  has  such  a  grip 
on  them.  One  reason,  as  already  suggested,  is 
that  the  student  is  constantly  drugging  himself 
with  the  belief  that  he  is  about  to  attain  the  un 
attainable.  Nirvana  is  always  about  two  holes 
ahead.  He  never  catches  up  with  it,  but  he 
continues  the  chase  until  he  holes  out  in  a  ceme 
tery. 

Isn't  it  possible  that  another  important  secret 
of  the  game's  popularity  is  that  it  permits  the 
player  to  progress,  literally  and  geographically, 
instead  of  compelling  him  to  remain  in  one  spot 
doing  the  same  fool  thing  over  and  over  again? 
Put  a  regular  golfer  on  the  croquet  grounds  or 
in  a  tennis  court,  and  he  feels  as  if  he  were 
locked  up  in  a  prison  cell.  He  wants  the  big 
open  spaces  and  plenty  of  elbow  room. 

Golf  is  a  long  journey  on  foot,  with  the  fa 
tigues  and  monotonies  of  pedestrianism  miracu 
lously  extracted. 

It  gratifies  the  instinct,  which  every  man  has 
kept  over  from  his  primitive  forebears,  to  get 
beyond  the  house  walls  and  fences,  and  scout 


GOLF  167 

around  bareheaded  through  fields  and  forests 
and  along  meandering  "cricks."  It  combines  a 
communing  with  nature  and  the  lust  for  victory, 
and  that,  it  will  be  conceded,  is  some  combina 
tion. 

It  inveigles  and  wheedles  and  seduces  lazy 
men  into  working  like  galley  slaves  and  forget 
ting  that  they  are  tired,  so  long  as  they  have  a 
chance  to  lug  home  the  bacon. 

If  you  will  watch  the  foursome  holing  out  at 
the  home  green,  you  will  notice  that  when  the 
last  ball  has  blopped  into  the  cup,  the  players 
suddenly  come  back  to  themselves.  With  sag 
ging  shoulders  and  dragging  footsteps  and  gusty 
sighs  and  laboured  breathing  they  move  wearily 
toward  the  clubhouse,  proclaiming  to  the  blue 
sky  above  and  the  green  grass  all  around  that 
they  are  dog-tired  and  all  in.  And  the  nine 
teenth  hole  has  nothing  on  except  Orange  Pe 
koe!  Oh,  well,  perhaps  it's  for  the  best! 

But  they  are  going  to  get  even  with  you  coun 
try  people  for  taking  their  Scotch  away  from 
them.  They  are  going  to  wish  on  to  you  a  lot 
of  drivers  and  brassies  and  spoons  and  middies 
and  mashies  and  jiggers  and  goose-necks  and 
pulls  and  slices  and  tops  and  founders  and  skies 
and  sclaffs  and  dubs  and  chips  and  lofts  and 


168  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

run-ups  and  bogies  and  pars  and  birdies  and 
eagles.  Don't  you  know  what  these  words 
mean?  Be  patient.  You  will  learn  by  and  by. 

A  great  life,  my  friends,  if  you  don't  weaken, 
and  you  can't  weaken  when  the  match  is  all 
square  and  a  small  bet  riding. 

If  the  doctors  are  safe  in  predicting  an  epi 
demic  when  they  know  that  germs  are  finding 
their  way  into  certain  people  who  have  not  been 
rendered  immune,  are  we  not  justified  in  post 
ing  up  our  prophecy  in  regard  to  golf?  The 
germs  are  everywhere  and  working  incessantly. 
No  one  between  the  cradle  and  the  grave  is  im 
mune. 

Small  towns  ahoy!     Golf  is  coming! 


NON-ESSENTIALS 

WHICH   traveller  collects  the   hard 
ships — the  one  with  the  toothbrush 
or  the  one  with  three  indestructible 
trunks? 

Happy  is  he  who  can  put  within  reach  the 
things  he  needs  and  avoid  becoming  a  haggard 
caretaker. 

If  our  friends  acquired  only  those  items  which 
are  indispensable  to  reasonable  contentment, 
what  would  they  do  with  all  the  cedar  chests 
and  extra  closets  and  attics  and  storerooms  and 
safety  deposit  boxes? 

The  founders  of  the  family  name  arrived  with 
an  axe,  a  rifle,  a  skillet,  and  a  spinning  wheel. 
While  building  an  empire,  they  frequently  gave 
thanks  for  all  the  bountiful  goodnesses  vouch 
safed  to  them. 

And    now,    granddaughter    thinks    that   the 
Fates  are  treating  her  rough  if  she  doesn't  get 
her  facial  massage  once  a  week. 
169 


170  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

Civilization  means  the  banking  up  of  material 
accessories  which  we  do  not  need. 

The  fun  of  spending  money  is  to  garner 
things  for  which  we  hanker,  without  being  com 
pelled  to  explain  why. 

But  the  shopping  pastime  can  be  worked 
up  into  a  dreadful  mania  for  collecting  non- 
essentials. 

The  problem  is  to  find  a  happy  compromise 
between  living  in  a  tree  and  endeavouring  to 
carry  a  ton  of  personal  property  under  each 
arm. 

Do  you  ever  play  the  new  game  of  solitaire 
called  "Looking  Backward"?  You  get  all  the 
cancelled  checks  of  last  year  and  finger  them 
over  and  ask  yourself,  "Why?"  If  you  can 
find  the  answer,  you  win. 

The  article  we  covet  begins  to  shrink  the  mo 
ment  the  price-tag  is  removed. 

Every  poor  man  in  America  would  like  to 
own  an  orange  grove  and  a  yacht.  Did  you 
ever  see  an  orange  grove  or  a  yacht  that  wasn't 
for  sale? 

What  becomes  of  the  beautiful  specimens  of 
neckwear  seen  in  shop-windows?  Men  rush  in 
and  buy  them  and  then  hide  them. 

We  of  the  U.  S.  A.  are  the  greatest  little  tribe 


NON-ESSENTIALS  171 

of  buyers  in  the  world,  specializing  on  gorgeous 
tomfooleries. 

Maybe  after  a  while  you  will  learn  to  project 
yourself  into  the  wiser  realms  of  the  future. 
Before  signing  a  check  or  committing  yourself 
to  a  venture,  you  will  find  it  possible  to  see  the 
transaction  as  it  will  appear  two  years  away, 
on  the  road  behind.  When  you  acquire  this 
gift,  you  will  lose  much  of  your  fretful  desire 
for  freak  golf  clubs,  mining  stock,  striped  shirts, 
platinum  cigarette  cases,  hair  tonics,  toy  dogs, 
and  midnight  suppers. 


INDIANA 

INDIANA   has  a  savour  not  to  be   detected 
in  Ohio.     It  is  decidedly  un-Michigan-like. 
Although  it  tinges  off  toward  Illinois  on  the 
west   and   Kentucky  on  the   south,  the  com 
munity  is  neither  nebulous  nor  indefinite.     It  is 
individual. 

Indiana  is  not  Out  West  or  Way  Down  East 
or  Up  North  or  south  in  Dixie. 

It  is  true  that,  west  of  the  Platte  River,  Indi 
ana  is  supposed  to  be  under  the  wither  and 
blight  of  Eastern  decay.  Conversely,  as  one 
leaves  Columbus,  Ohio,  and  moves  toward  the 
region  of  perpetual  sea-food,  he  encounters  peo 
ple  to  whom  Terre  Haute  and  Cripple  Creek  are 
synonymous. 

The  Hoosier  refuses  to  be  classified  by  those 
who  lack  information.  He  knows  that  his  state 
is  an  oasis,  surrounded  by  sections.  Our  people 
are  clotted  around  the  exact  centre  of  popula 
tion.  Boston  is  not  the  hub.  It  is  a  repaired 
section  of  the  pneumatic  rim. 

172 


INDIANA  173 

When  a  state  is  one  hundred  years  old  (Indi 
ana  is  beyond  the  century  mark)  it  escapes  the 
personal  recollections  of  the  pioneer,  and  is  still 
so  young  that  newspapers  do  not  burn  incense 
before  the  grandchildren  of  eminent  grandpar 
ents. 

We  have  grown  some  ivy,  but  we  have  not 
yet  taken  on  moss. 

Indiana  has  made  history,  but  it  figures  that 
the  present  and  the  future  are  more  worthy  of 
attention  than  a  dim  and  receding  past. 

Indiana  has  cemeteries  and  family  trees,  but 
does  not  subsist  on  them. 

If  the  Hoosier  is  proud  of  his  state,  it  is  be 
cause  the  state  has  lived  down  and  fought  down 
certain  misconceptions.  Even  in  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  the  fact  that  Indiana  produces 
more  gray  matter  than  hoop-poles  is  slowly  be 
ginning  to  percolate. 

For  a  long  time  the  Hoosier  was  on  the  defen 
sive.  Now  he  is  on  a  pedestal. 

Forty  or  fifty  years  ago  the  native  son  who 
went  travelling  owned  up  to  an  indefinite  resi 
dence  somewhere  between  Chicago  and  Louis 
ville.  To-day  the  Hoosier  abroad  claims  Indi 
ana  fervently,  hoping  to  be  mistaken  for  an 
author. 


174  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

The  Indiana  man  respects  his  state  because  it 
has  grown  to  importance  and  wealth  without  ac 
quiring  a  double  chin  or  wearing  a  wrist  watch. 

The  sniffy  millionaire  and  the  aloof  patrician 
do  not  cause  any  trembles  in  the  state  of  Indi 
ana. 

Even  our  larger  cities  have  no  thoroughfares 
shaded  by  the  gloomy  strongholds  of  caste. 
Some  of  the  more  enterprising  comrades  are  un 
duly  prosperous,  but  they  continue  to  reside  in 
homes. 

The  state  is  short  on  slums  and  aristocratic 
reservations.  In  other  words,  we  are  still  build 
ing  according  to  specifications. 

The  number  of  liveried  servants  residing 
within  the  boundaries  is  incredibly  small  and 
does  not  include  one  person  born  on  the  banks 
of  the  Wabash. 

We  have  a  full  quota  of  smart  alecks,  but  not 
one  serf. 

Because  Indiana  is  not  overbalanced  by  city 
population  and  is  not  cowed  by  arrogant  wealth 
and  has  a  lingering  regard  for  the  cadences  of 
the  spellbinder,  an  old-fashioned  admiration  for 
the  dignified  professions,  and  local  pride  in 
all  styles  of  literary  output,  the  Hoosier  has 
achieved  his  peculiar  distinction  as  a  mixed  type 


INDIANA  175 

—a  puzzling  combination  of  shy  provincial,  un 
fettered  democrat  and  Fourth  of  July  orator. 
He  is  a  student  by  choice,  a  poet  by  sneaking 
inclination,  and  a  story-teller  by  reason  of  his 
nativity. 

Indiana  has  been  helped  to  state  conscious 
ness  because  a  great  man  arose  to  reveal  the 
Hoosiers  to  themselves.  The  quintessence  of 
all  that  is  admirable  in  the  make-up  of  the  na 
tive  was  exemplified  in  James  Whitcomb  Riley. 

No  wonder  he  was  beloved  and  has  become 
the  central  figure  of  our  Walhalla.  Why 
shouldn't  we  be  proud  of  our  own  kin? 

The  state  is  full  of  undiscovered  Rileys,  in 
glorious  but  not  necessarily  mute. 

Your  passer-by  looks  out  of  the  car  window 
and  sees  the  Hoosier  on  the  depot  platform, 
necktieless  and  slightly  bunched  at  the  knees. 
According  to  all  the  late  cabaret  standards,  the 
Hoosier  is  a  simpleton,  the  same  as  you  observe 
in  the  moving  pictures. 

Alight  from  the  train  and  get  close  to  our 
brother  before  you  turn  in  your  verdict. 

Forget  that  he  shaves  his  neck  and  remember 
that  many  a  true  heart  beats  under  galluses. 

Pick  out  a  low,  roomy  box  on  the  sunny  side 
of  the  general  store  and  listen  with  open  mind, 


176  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

while  he  discourses  on  the  crops,  and  bass  fish 
ing,  and  preparedness  for  war,  and  General  Lew 
Wallace,  and  Christian  Science,  and  how  to  find 
a  bee-tree.  Do  you  want  a  line  on  Booth  Tark- 
ington  or  Albert  Beveridge  or  Tom  Taggart? 
He  will  give  you  the  most  inside  information 
and  garnish  it  with  anecdotes. 

The  Hoosier  may  wear  the  wrong  kind  of  hat, 
but  he  is  alert  on  men  and  affairs  and  living 
doctrines.  For  sixty  years  the  state  has  been  a 
crucible  of  politics.  It  was  a  buffer  between 
crowding  factions  all  during  the  Civil  War. 

Just  as  the  Hoosier  emerges  from  the  cradle 
he  is  handed  a  set  of  convictions  and  learns  that 
he  must  defend  them,  verbally  and  otherwise. 
So  he  goes  into  training.  He  may  turn  out  to 
be  a  congressman  or  a  contributor  to  the  maga 
zines,  but  even  if  he  escapes  notoriety  he  will 
always  be  a  belligerent,  with  a  slant  toward  the 
intellectual. 

What  happened  away  back  yonder  to  make 
Indiana  different?  Listen!  There  were  two 
migrations  early  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
From  the  seaboard  there  was  a  movement  to  the 
west.  From  the  Carolinas  and  the  mountain 
regions  there  was  a  drift  northward  across  the 
Ohio  River.  Indiana  was  settled  by  pioneers 


INDIANA  177 

who  had  the  enterprise  to  seek  new  fields  and 
the  gumption  to  unpack  and  settle  down  when 
they  found  themselves  in  the  promised  land. 

Indiana  is  a  composite  of  steel  mills  and 
country  clubs,  factories  and  colleges,  promoters 
and  professors,  stock-breeders  and  Chautauqua 
attractions,  cornfields  and  campuses.  It  grows 
all  the  crops  and  propaganda  known  to  the  tem 
perate  zone. 

If  a  high  wall  could  be  erected  to  inclose 
Indiana,  the  state  would  continue  to  operate  in 
all  departments,  but  the  outsiders  would  have 
to  scale  the  wall  in  order  to  get  their  dialect 
poetry. 

Here's  to  Indiana,  a  state  as  yet  unspoiled! 
Here's  to  the  Hoosier  home  folks,  a  good  deal 
more  sophisticated  than  they  let  on  to  be! 


COMPARISONS 

WERE  the  mint  juleps  pf  the  Pen- 
dennis  Club,  in  Louisville,  more  se 
ductive  than  those  of  the  Union 
Club,  in  New  York  City?  Go  ask  of  the  wind 
that  blows  across  the  bone-dry  prairie. 

In  a  voting  contest  between  Baltimore  terra 
pin  and  New  Orleans  pompano,  who  could  make 
up  his  mind? 

All  the  time  we  are  being  asked  to  pin  our  ap 
proval  to  dangerous  comparisons.  Don't  you 
think  St.  Louis  is  a  better  town  than  Detroit? 
Isn't  Pasadena  pleasanter  in  the  winter  than 
Palm  Beach?  Don't  you  feel  convinced,  in 
your  heart  of  hearts,  that  alligator  pear  is  im 
mensely  superior  to  salted  nuts?  What  is  the 
answer  in  any  case?  The  answer  is  that  there 
is  no  sense  to  the  fool  question. 

If  your  best  girl  lives  in  Gopher  Prairie  and  is 

sitting  there  waiting  for  you,  why  then  Gopher 

Prairie  has  it  plastered  all  over  Newport  for 

architecture,  beauty,  civic  pride,  social  distinc- 

178 


COMPARISONS  179 

tion,  all-around  intelligence  and  sophisticated 
up-to-dateness. 

To  the  derelicts  on  the  benches  along  the 
Thames  Embankment,  London  is  a  stifling 
charnel-house. 

Perhaps  you  look  out  of  the  car  window  and 
pity  the  people  who  have  to  live  in  those  towns. 
You  compare  the  meagre  picture  of  the  village 
with  the  far-flung  and  megatherian  panorama  of 
the  city  boulevard,  streaming  with  life  and  but 
tressed  by  towering  palaces.  Before  you  add 
up  the  total  of  your  observations,  remember 
that  the  village  dignitary  has  seen  the  boule 
vard  and  does  not  crave  it. 

Every  town  is  a  city  if  the  man  living  there 
finds  opportunity,  the  right  woman,  a  sound 
roof  above  his  head  and  the  trimmings  of  nor 
mal  existence.  And  before  you  make  him  the 
victim  of  any  smug  comparison,  try  to  find  out 
if  these  moving  motor  cars  and  high  apartment 
houses  have  really  added  any  importance  to 
your  submerged  career. 

Revising  an  old  adage,  comparisons  are  odor 
ous.  They  are  rooted  in  ignorance  and  thrive 
upon  prejudice. 

Once  a  native  son  and  a  gilded  codfish  met  at 
a  dinner  party  and  entered  upon  a  heated  de- 


180  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

bate  as  to  the  relative  merits  of  San  Francisco 
and  Boston.  Finally  they  turned  to  the  by- 
sitters  and  demanded  a  verdict  and  the  sufferers 
responded,  as  with  one  voice,  "Philadelphia 
wins!" 

The  point  of  which  is  that  no  one  ever  dis 
lodged  any  mortal  from  those  preferences  and 
predilections  which  are  founded  upon  the  senti 
mental  associations  of  youth. 

The  flapper  raves  of  John  Barrymore  and 
grandmother  smiles  in  pity  and  says,  "My  dear, 
you  never  saw  Edwin  Booth." 

Jenny  Lind  was  as  incomparable  to  the  hoop- 
skirts  as  Galli-Curci  is  to  the  no-skirts. 

Try  to  convince  an  old-time  fan  that  Mike 
Kelly  did  not  class  with  Ty  Cobb  or  Babe  Ruth. 

Uncle  Henry  out  at  Willow  Grove  believes 
that  Haverly's  minstrels  were  bigger  than  the 
Hippodrome. 

The  Varsovienne  vs.  the  Toddle — there  is  an 
argument  that  never  could  be  ended! 

The  eyes  of  youth  are  magnifying  glasses  and 
the  imagination  which  has  not  become  weary 
sees  everything  in  colours.  Go  back  to  your  old 
home  town  and  learn  that  the  stately  mansions 
have  shrunk  to  cottages  and  the  "ole  swimmin' 
hole"  is  just  a  puddle  of  warm  water. 


COMPARISONS  181 

The  most  desirable  spots  on  the  map  are  those 
that  treated  you  right.  Our  best  people  are 
those  who  send  invitations.  All  streets  are  wide 
to  the  prosperous  man.  No  other  town  can 
compare  with  the  town  which  has  a  triumphal 
arch  at  every  intersection,  giving  welcome  to 
contentment  and  happiness. 


SERVANTS 

THE  first  fruit  of  prosperity  is  to  have 
someone  else  fill  the  tub.     And  break 
fast   in    bed!     Nothing  could   be   more 
so,  even  in  Newport. 

The  top  knoll  of  success  has  not  been  attained 
until  the  climber  is  entirely  surrounded  by 
cringing  and  whispering  menials.  The  harder 
the  climb,  the  more  the  menials.  In  all  the  per 
fumed  realms  of  the  Newly  Important  there  is 
no  matron  so  haughty  as  she  who  built  the  fires 
up  to  the  time  she  was  eighteen  years  of  age. 

We  have  set  all  the  scenery  for  a  spectacle  in 
volving  the  employment  of  a  great  army  of 
supers.  They  are  to  provide  the  dull  back 
ground,  while  the  spangled  kings  and  queens  of 
the  elect  stand  down  front  and  sing  the  solos, 
flooded  with  the  soft  spot-lights  of  an  admiring 
publicity. 

We  have  built  up  an  enormous  demand  for 
serfs,  but  no  one  has  invented  a  process  for  turn 
ing  them  out, 

182 


SERVANTS  183 

The  young  lady  who  brings  in  the  food  scorns 
the  garb  of  slavery  and  is  made  up  for  the  third 
act  of  a  musical  play.  Why  not?  She  has  been 
taught  for  years  that  she  is  entitled  to  all  of  the 
social  privileges  and  toilet  arrangements  of  Mrs. 
Astor  and  Gloria  Swanson.  In  bestowing  the 
romaine  she  does  a  correct  imitation  of  Queen 
Mary  handing  out  the  term  prizes  at  an  Or 
phanage. 

The  public  schools  compel  the  freckled  lad  to 
believe  that  he  is  a  swelling  bud,  and  that  the 
full  bloom  may  be  Thomas  A.  Edison,  Judge 
Gary,  or  Warren  Gamaliel  Harding. 

When  the  lad  arrives  at  the  age  of  twenty  and 
declines  to  wear  a  whipcord  uniform  and  touch 
his  cap  to  some  large  pink  lady  in  tulle  then  it 
seems  that  the  trials  of  the  rich  are  quite  beyond 
endurance. 

Probably  no  good  butler  ever  was  born  in  the 
U.  S.  A.  No  Boy  Scout  ever  grew  up  to  wear 
side-whiskers  and  arrange  the  flowers  for  a 
dinner-party. 

The  girl  who  feels  within  herself  the  surging 
talents  of  a  Maude  Adams  is  not  going  to  act  as 
day  watchman  over  a  strange  baby. 

They  say  that  domestics  captured  direct  from 
the  steerage  have  to  be  locked  up  or  they 


184  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

become  temperamental.  It  must  be  the  cli 
mate. 

The  same  old  regulars  line  up  at  the  employ 
ment  agencies — nerve-shattered  millionairesses 
looking  for  meek  females  with  a  supernatural 
gift  for  doing  everything  right,  and  battle- 
scarred  veterans  of  the  kitchen  and  pantry,  still 
searching  for  that  imaginary  haven  in  which 
"interference"  will  be  unknown. 

When  any  one  says  that  now,  since  the  war, 
we  produce  everything  the  same  as  in  Europe, 
tell  him  to  drop  off  at  Peoria,  Illinois,  and  try  to 
engage  a  good  valet! 


THE  OLD-TIME  RALLY 

THE  "rally"  is  just  about  extinct.     Voters 
firmly  refuse  to  be  wrought  up  at  regu 
lar    intervals,    even    in    Indiana.     They 
will  turn  out  in  flocks  and  droves  to  welcome 
a   presidential  candidate   and  they  will  cheer 
decorously  and  then  drive  home   in   a   placid 
state  of  mind,  glad  they  are  going  to  vote  for 
the  right  man.     But  this  is  Christian  Endeav 
our  politics — sterilized  politics — imitation  pol 
itics. 

Oh,  for  the  frenzied  days  of  forty  years  ago! 
Do  you  remember  the  "Tanners"  with  their  oil 
cloth  capes,  the  flaming  torches,  the  Greeley 
hats,  the  maniacal  shrieks,  the  fisticuffs,  the 
night  riders,  the  gesticulating  swarm  of  hot- 
eyed  men  outside  of  each  polling  place?  If  you 
didn't  live  in  Indiana  during  the  seventies  and 
eighties,  you  never  saw  partisan  politics  in  full 
bloom. 

The  smouldering  hatreds  of  one  presidential 
campaign  overlapped  upon  the  growing  ani- 

185 


186  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

mosities  of  the  next  one.  County  and  township 
elections  in  between  helped  to  maintain  a  con 
stant  and  genial  temperature  of  about  212  de 
grees  Fahrenheit.  The  bloodstains  and  fever  of 
war  were  still  in  evidence.  Soldier  boys  were 
still  voting  as  they  shot  and  talking  as  they 
voted. 

And  the  newspapers!  The  editor  started  in 
with  "hell-hound"  and  worked  up  from  that. 

Indiana  was  the  hottest  cauldron  in  the  na 
tional  kitchen  because  the  result  of  each  cam 
paign  was  in  doubt.  Grant  carried  the  state  in 
1872;  Tilden  captured  it  in  1876;  the  Republi 
cans  stormed  it  in  1880  under  the  leadership  of 
Garfield,  and  kept  their  banners  planted  on  the 
dark  and  trampled  ground  until  1884  when  the 
Democrats  made  a  furious  charge  under  Cleve 
land  and  Hendricks  and  regained  the  position, 
holding  it  until  1888,  when  Benjamin  Harrison 
and  his  home  guard  repelled  the  foe.  They 
were  driven  out  in  1892  but  the  Republicans 
came  back  again  in  1896  and  clung  for  sixteen 
years ! 

In  each  presidential  year  there  was  a  state 
election  in  October.  The  result  of  this  election 
was  supposed  to  have  an  immense  moral  influ 
ence  upon  other  wavering  states.  The  national 


THE  OLD-TIME  RALLY  187 

and  state  campaign  committees  shipped  heavy 
artillery  and  small  arms  into  Indiana  by  the 
train-load.  The  Hoosier  state  was  the  funnel- 
shaped  whirligig  right  in  the  heart  of  the  rag 
ing  storm.  It  was  called  the  "pivotal"  state. 
It  began  to  pivot  early  in  the  spring  of  each 
presidential  year  and  kept  on  pivoting  until 
snowfall. 

The  early  months  were  given  over  to  skir 
mishes  and  battles  within  the  party — sorting  out 
county  tickets,  booming  rival  candidates  for 
state  offices,  endless  discussions  in  superheated 
harness  shops,  grocery  stores,  meat  markets, 
livery  stables,  and  undertaking  establishments 
of  the  comparative  chances  of  the  giants  who 
were  striving  for  the  presidential  nomination. 
The  newspapers,  which  from  one  year's  end  to 
another  had  no  editorial  policy  except  to  heap 
fulsome  praise  upon  all  representatives  of  their 
own  party  and  throw  poisoned  javelins  at 
leaders  of  the  corrupt  and  venal  opposition, 
would  begin  breaking  into  italics  and  exclama 
tion  points. 

All  quarrels  within  the  party  ended  with  the 
conventions.  The  independent  voter  was  un 
known.  If  you  lived  in  Indiana,  you  had  to  be 
a  Republican,  a  Democrat,  a  floater,  or  a  help- 


188  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

less  female.  The  greenbackers,  a  hybrid  growth 
resulting  from  morbid  conditions,  sprang  up  in 
occasional  fence  corners  for  a  while  and  then 
were  plucked  and  put  back  where  they  belonged. 
By  the  way,  "belonged"  is  the  word.  Every  man 
"belonged"  to  a  party  and  loved  to  say  so,  in 
a  loud  and  penetrating  voice,  while  standing  in 
front  of  the  drug  store.  The  voter  who  never 
had  scratched  his  ticket  was  a  wayside  hero  and 
sang  his  own  praises.  This  is  how  he  told  it: 
"Til  vote  for  a  yellow  dog  if  he's  runnin'  on  our 
ticket!" 

Sometimes  he  almost  got  his  wish. 

When  the  presidential  candidate  was  named, 
messengers  on  horseback  carried  the  news  to 
the  outlying  townships.  Telephones  had  not 
come  in.  The  buzz  of  incipient  frenzy  began 
to  freight  the  air.  Surely  it  could  have  been 
heard  anywhere  in  Illinois  or  Ohio.  Every  town 
big  enough  to  have  a  place  on  the  map  im 
mediately  called  a  "ratification  meeting." 

Has  any  one  heard  of  a  ratification  meeting 
lately? 

They  piled  up  the  tar-barrels  and  turned 
loose  the  defiant  oratory.  That  was  the  real 
opening  of  the  campaign — in  June,  not  Septem 
ber. 


THE  OLD-TIME  RALLY  189 

After  waiting  possibly  a  week,  the  town 
ships  would  begin  raising  liberty  poles,  organ 
izing  sheepskin  bands  and  mobilizing  the  faith 
ful  into  marching  clubs.  Each  member  of  the 
fanatic  company  known  as  a  marching  club 
chipped  in  for  a  coat  of  red,  white,  and  blue,  a 
cap  with  a  fluffy  plume,  and  a  torch  shaped  like 
a  ballot-box.  In  the  moneyed  centres,  such  as 
LaFayette  and  Terre  Haute,  the  business  men's 
club  would  go  in  for  flambeaux,  white  plug  hats, 
and  star-spangled  umbrellas.  All  this  was  in 
June,  mind  you — not  September. 

Campaigns  were  not  engineered  by  chairmen 
in  those  delirious  days.  The  voters  manu 
factured  their  own  excitement.  Party  leaders 
simply  galloped  along  the  side  lines  and  tried 
to  keep  up  with  the  procession.  There  was  no 
make-believe  about  it.  Each  partisan  loved  his 
own  candidate — worshipped  him.  He  was  blind 
and  idolatrous  in  his  worship — shouted  and  sang 
and  marched  and  counter-marched  until  he  was 
in  a  trancified  condition,  the  same  as  a  whirl 
ing  dervish  or  a  Moki  snake-dancer. 

Looking  back  from  the  calm  of  these  later 
years  it  seems  almost  unbelievable  that  so  many 
thousands  of  sincere  and  patriotic  citizens 
should  have  hated  with  a  devouring  and  ven- 


190  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

omous  hatred  the  misguided  but  well-meaning 
Horace  Greeley;  a  brave  and  clean  and  dig 
nified  soldier  such  as  General  Hancock,  or  an 
incorruptible  executive  such  as  Grover  Cleve 
land. 

Our  shame  is  slightly  modified  by  the  re 
flection  that  we  were  goaded  beyond  endurance 
by  the  insults  heaped  upon  General  Grant, 
Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  James  A.  Garfield,  our 
much-beloved  "Jim"  Blaine,  and  the  favourite 
son  of  our  own  state,  Benjamin  Harrison. 

The  cubs  in  every  country  town  snarled  and 
yelled  and  fought  the  same  as  their  elders. 

"Hurrah  for  Hayes!"  would  shout  some 
bright-eyed  little  republican  Rollo. 

"A  rope  to  hang  him  and  a  knife  to  cut  his 
throat!"  would  retort  some  Diminutive  Demo 
crat,  full  of  home-training. 

Then  the  two  would  clinch  and  go  down  into 
the  dust  together. 

What  could  you  expect  from  the  juveniles 
when  the  voters  were  still  singing  about  hanging 
Jeff  Davis  to  a  sour  apple  tree? 

A  county-seat  rally  in  those  days  was  osten 
sibly  called  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  votes. 
In  reality  it  was  a  noisy  demonstration  of  con 
tempt  for  the  opposition.  It  gave  the  frantic 


THE  OLD-TIME  RALLY  191 

partisans  a  chance  to  get  together  and  further 
inflame  their  minds  and  nourish  their  prej 
udices.  They  wanted  to  hear  the  campaign 
orator  who  could  say  the  most  scalding  and 
vitriolic  things  about  the  contemptible  and 
cowardly  marplots  of  the  opposition. 

The  farmers  drove  for  miles  and  miles  across 
the  prairie  dirt  roads  to  attend  these  hate-feasts. 
Each  wagon  had  a  spring  seat  in  front.  Behind 
it  were  boards  laid  across,  and  there,  in  the  tail 
end,  was  a  rocking  chair  for  some  withered 
grandpa  or  grandma  whose  remaining  vitality 
was  still  being  exerted  in  the  right  direction. 
Down  the  dusty  roads  they  came,  wagon  after 
wagon,  the  men  in  dark  store  clothes  of  gro 
tesque  misfit,  the  women  baggily  gowned,  and 
the  young  folks  rigged  out  in  fearful  and  won 
derful  costumes  of  home  manufacture.  Us 
ually  each  township  came  as  a  solid  delegation 
— a  long  row  of  wagons  decked  out  with 
branches  of  trees  and  strings  of  cheap  bunting, 
a  martial  band  thumping  away  in  one  of  the 
wagons,  hand-painted  banners  of  a  highly  in 
sulting  character  hoisted  above  others,  probably 
one  "float"  built  up  from  a  hay  rack,  with  girls 
in  white  dresses  and  tri-coloured  sashes  to  rep 
resent  the  states  of  the  union,  and  high  in  the 


192  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

centre  the  goddess  of  liberty,  grinning  benignly. 

The  heated  imagination  of  those  days  ran  to 
allegory.  I  have  seen  as  many  as  twenty  floats 
at  a  country  rally,  one  representing  a  brutal 
Southern  master  flogging  a  Negro,  another 
showing  gruesome  figures  of  the  Ku  Klux,  an 
other  depicting  a  boy  in  blue  upholding  the 
banner  of  our  candidates,  and  so  on,  all  tending 
to  keep  alive  the  bitterness  of  the  wartime  and 
reveal  in  picture  form  the  malign  schemes  of  the 
enemy. 

At  a  Republican  rally  the  Democrats  lined  up 
to  welcome  these  tableaux  and  jeer  at  them. 
The  repartee  was  usually  direct  and  intensely 
personal.  The  town  marshal  and  his  assistants 
had  a  busy  time  untangling  the  belligerents.  By 
day  the  speechmakers  shouted  and  the  glee  clubs 
sang,  while  fifes  and  drums  kept  up  their  tedious 
but  exhilarating  thump  and  tootle.  By  night 
the  uniformed  clubs  trailed  in  torch-light  pa 
rades,  and  when  it  was  all  over  the  delegations 
rode  homeward  making  night  interesting  with 
their  whoops  and  howls. 

These  rallies  represented  in  the  aggregate  a 
tremendous  expenditure  of  time,  money,  vocal 
energy  and  spiritual  essence,  without  changing 
very  many  votes.  Probably  ninety-eight  per 


THE  OLD-TIME  RALLY  193 

cent,  of  the  voters  in  Indiana  were  rock-ribbed 
in  their  adherence  to  one  party  or  the  other. 
They  were  almost  equally  divided.  The  elec 
tion  went  to  the  party  that  could  capture  the 
"floaters"  or  could  rush  illegal  voters  across 
from  Kentucky  or  by  night  train  down  from 
Chicago.  The  "floater"  was  usually  an  un 
lettered  son  of  the  hazel  brush,  a  village  loafer 
or  a  large  town  hobo  who  craved  either  per 
sonal  solicitation  or  currency,  and  usually  both. 
The  "floater"  held  aloof  from  either  party  and 
pretended  to  be  much  in  doubt  as  to  whither  the 
call  of  duty  led  him.  He  felt  flattered  and  saw 
himself  in  a  new  importance  when  he  could 
induce  men  of  large  affairs  and  tremendous 
standing  in  the  community  to  coddle  him,  hand 
shake  him  and  take  him  out  for  long  walks  at 
night. 

On  election  day  the  floater  sat  on  a  fence 
near  the  polling  place  and  waited,  still  ponder 
ing  on  affairs  of  state;  still  holding  his  head  and 
trying  to  come  to  some  decision.  He  would  be 
approached  by  a  party  worker,  to  whom  had 
been  assigned  the  delicate  task  of  getting  Bill. 
Something  like  the  following  dialogue  would 
ensue: 

"Hello,  Bill." 


194  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

"How  are  you,  Cap?" 

"Voted  yet?" 

"Nope." 

"How  you  goin'  to  vote?" 

"Well,  I  can't  just  make  up  my  mind.  Good 
many  people  been  talkin'  to  me.  Don't  know  as 
I'll  vote  at  all,"  and  he  looks  down  street,  evad 
ing  the  gaze  of  the  determined  "Cap." 

"Bill?" 

"Yep." 

"I'd  like  to  see  you  for  a  minute." 

"All  right,  Cap." 

He  detaches  himself  from  the  fence  with  some 
difficulty  and  follows  "Cap"  across  the  street 
and  down  the  alley  into  a  secluded  poultry 
house,  trailed  at  a  not  very  respectful  distance 
by  two  or  more  gentlemen  wearing  badges  that 
are  not  similar  to  the  badge  worn  by  "Cap." 

What  happens  in  the  poultry  house  will  never 
be  known  until  the  practical  politicians  of 
Indiana  begin  writing  their  secret  memoirs. 
But  when  "Cap"  comes  out  holding  Bill  by  the 
arm,  Bill  has  a  ballot  folded  in  his  right  vest 
pocket.  "Cap"  takes  him  on  a  dog  trot  to  the 
polling  place.  The  friends  of  "Cap"  block  and 
interfere  when  opposition  tries  to  crowd  up  and 
rescue  Bill;  the  "floater"  is  pushed  in  front  of 


THE  OLD-TIME  RALLY  195 

the  open  window;  the  ballot  comes  out  of  the 
vest  pocket  and  is  poked  through  the  window. 
The  judge  announces  in  a  loud  voice  that  Bill 
has  voted. 

Men  of  the  "Cap"  variety  had  a  lot  to  do 
with  carrying  Indiana  for  one  party  or  the 
other  until  the  Australian  ballot  law  began  to 
hamper  individual  enterprise. 

Then  the  "floater"  began  to  lose  his  relative 
importance.  He  could  be  fixed,  but  he  couldn't 
be  delivered. 

New  issues  and  new  methods  have  gradually 
eliminated  the  old-time  political  madness.  At 
one  time  campaigning  was  the  only  form  of  pub 
lic  entertainment  known  in  our  state.  Now  we 
have  the  movie  theatre,  the  coloured  supple 
ment,  the  radio  ear-mufTs,  the  street  carnival, 
baseball,  and  band  concerts.  The  bitterness  of 
the  war  period  has  evaporated  and  newspapers 
try  to  soothe  rather  than  to  agitate.  Republi 
cans  no  longer  hate  Democrats.  They  do  not  so 
much  as  pity  them.  They  simply  regard  them 
as  the  less  interesting  features  of  the  landscape. 


OVERLORDS 

OME  day,  in  the  shade  of  the  big  top,  the 
"fixer"  employed  by  an  amusement 
enterprise  billed  as  the  world's  great 
est,  revealed  the  secret :  "When  a  trouble-maker 
tries  to  put  over  a  false  claim  for  damages, 
knowing  that  the  circus  will  be  leaving  at  mid 
night  and  that  we  cannot  stay  over  to  fight  him 
in  court,  I  never  try  to  settle  with  him.  I  find 
out  who  owns  him  and  then  I  go  and  square 
the  whole  mix-up  with  the  man  higher  up.  A 
few  big  guns  give  all  the  orders  in  every 
town." 

How  about  those  essays  on  the  essentials  of 
leadership?  It  is  easy  to  sit  at  a  desk  and  de 
cide  that  the  men  who  dominate  the  crowd  have 
superior  methods  of  reasoning,  a  wider  range  of 
vision,  and  a  large  store  of  expert  information 
on  many  subjects.  Theoretically,  college  pro 
fessors  should  constitute  a  ruling  class.  Be 
tween  ourselves,  we  know  that  they  form  a 
large  but  ineffective  group,  well  in  the  back- 

196 


OVERLORDS  197 

ground.  They  utter  many  dogmatic  opinions, 
but  cut  very  little  ice. 

China  was  inert  for  centuries  because  officials 
were  chosen  by  the  test  of  scholarship.  Now 
the  men  who  smash  through  and  get  results 
have  taken  charge. 

When  you  size  up  the  rugged  party  who  rides 
down  opposition  and  rules  his  neighbourhood, 
you  may  not  find  the  outward  symptoms  of  cul 
ture  but  often  you  will  find  a  lower  jaw  sug 
gesting  the  bulldog  that  takes  first  prize  at  a 
bench  show. 

From  the  sewing  circle  and  the  nine-hole  golf 
club  up  to  the  most  powerful  political  machine 
in  the  world,  the  whip  is  cracked  by  some  asser 
tive  individual  who  issues  crisp  commands  while 
you  and  I  and  all  of  our  kind  are  hemming  and 
hawing  and  inquiring  as  to  precedents. 

The  smallest  town  you  see  from  the  car  win 
dow  harbours  a  small  replica  of  Dick  Croker  or 
a  milk-fed  miniature  of  Charles  Murphy. 

We  advertise  our  democracy  and  then,  in 
every  crisis,  throw  back  six  centuries  to  the 
feudal  period  and  wait  to  get  our  instructions 
from  some  benevolent  baron. 

The  precincts  and  districts  in  politics  are 
owned  in  fee  simple  by  certain  sachems  who  do 


198  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

the  bargaining.  Some  of  them  are  beheaded, 
but  even  then  the  supreme  authority  does  not 
revert  to  the  strap-hangers.  It  is  simply  trans 
ferred  to  a  new  set  of  moguls. 

When  a  bunch  of  boys  assemble  on  the 
common  to  "choose  up,"  one  of  the  lot,  with 
steel-gray  eyes  and  knotty  looking  fists,  steps 
out  and  says,  'Til  be  captain/'  No  one  dares  to 
challenge  him.  The  opposition  is  not  organized. 
He  tells  the  others  what  to  do  next.  If  he  lives 
to  be  eighty,  he  will  still  domineer  and  dictate — 
and  get  away  with  it. 

That's  the  trouble.  The  world  is  full  of 
Napoleons  who  carry  mufflers.  Pacifism  is  more 
important  to  them  than  the  meal  ticket. 

Many  of  the  subordinates  have  everything 
needed  to  make  them  executives  except  the 
nerve  to  assert  themselves. 

"Rolling  Mill"  Kelly  said  that  when  four 
Irishmen  worked  on  a  job,  one  was  boss,  an 
other  was  foreman,  the  third  was  overseer  and 
the  fourth  was  superintendent. 

Which  explains  why  the  Irish  Free  State  is  in 
Dublin  Castle  while  Egypt  and  India  are  merely 
wailing  their  discontents.  The  trouble  with  the 
Hindus  and  Arabs  is  that  they  are  not  named 
McCarthy. 


Music 

YOU  see  her  for  the  first  time,  and  some 
how  she  gives  you  the  impression  that 
she  has  just  bitten  into  a  lemon;  so  you 
say  to  yourself,  "Probably  she  plays  the  piano 
very  well." 

Why  does  perfectly  good  music  have  a  cur 
dling  effect  upon  its  high  priests  and  virginal  al 
tar-tenders? 

It  is  made  for  soothing  purposes,  so  Shake 
speare  says,  yet  those  who  dope  themselves  too 
heavily  with  the  rich  varieties  become  tem 
peramental  dyspeptics. 

Probably  it  would  be  awfully  hard  to  room 
with  one  who  knew  too  much  about  music. 

The  cruel  pity  lavished  by  the  bridge  expert 
upon  the  mental  defective  who  fails  to  com 
prehend  signals  is  as  naught  compared  with 
the  devastating  scorn  which  the  Grieg  fanatic 
visits  upon  the  loyal  followers  of  Irving 
Berlin. 

Men  who  are  not  afraid  to  walk  up  to  a 
199 


200  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

machine  gun  will  run  a  mile  when  they  see  a 
young  woman  who  has  been  thoroughly  con- 
servatoried. 

The  light-headed  layman  whose  cerebral  cor 
ridors  are  constructed  upon  the  general  plan  of 
a  cantaloupe  always  begins  to  look  about  and 
select  the  nearest  exit  when  the  conversation 
shifts  to  Grand  Opera. 

Music  is  the  universal  heritage.  Somewhere 
in  the  flower-dotted  fields  between  Brahms  and 
'The  Maiden's  Prayer"  there  is  room  for  all  of 
us  to  ramble. 

The  hairy  denizens  of  the  studios  probably 
would  favour  the  electric  chair  for  any  one  who 
spoke  out  in  defense  of  any  tune  that  has  com 
mitted  the  unpardonable  offence  of  transmitting 
ecstasy  to  about  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  popula 
tion. 

Popularity  need  not  be  a  synonym  for  cheap 
ness  and  unworthiness.  Prunes  and  sunsets 
and  georgettes  and  kodaks  are  popular,  but 
what  would  our  vaunted  civilization  do  with 
out  them? 

A  song  which  will  caress  the  emotions  of 
several  millions  of  people  is  of  more  practical 
value  than  the  average  Congressional  enact 
ment.  During  the  period  which  follows  an 


MUSIC  201 

orgy,  what  could  be  more  beneficial  than  a  rest 
ful  diet  of  mush? 

And  yet  who  has  the  courage  to  look  a  tea- 
drinker  straight  in  the  eye  and  say  that  he  pre 
fers  "Mother  Machree"  by  John  McCormack 
to  'Tristan  and  Isolde"? 

Speaking  as  one  who  has  advanced  from 
"Molly  Darling"  to  "La  Boheme,"  it  is  not  to  be 
denied  that  even  the  lowly  born  may  learn  to 
handle,  and  almost  assimilate,  music  which  ap 
peals  to  the  head  as  well  as  to  the  heels. 

Only  a  few  of  us  can  establish  altitude  rec 
ords  in  the  higher  realms  of  music.  Be  fair  in 
your  judgment  of  those  who  go  up  so  high 
that  they  are  no  longer  visible  to  the  naked 
eye. 

Be  comforted  by  the  reflection  that  all  music 
is  good.  If  jazz  could  be  converted  into  music 
it  would  be  all  right  too. 

Because  you  seek  the  drugging  effects  of  rag 
time,  do  not  contradict  those  who  claim  to  get 
an  actual  kick  from  the  Boston  Symphony  Or 
chestra. 

Be  not  ashamed  of  a  sneaking  fondness  for 
minstrel  songs  and  the  solemn  cadences  of  the 
old-time  hymns.  Make  no  apology  for  senti 
mental  ballads.  Maple-sirup,  it  is  true;  but 


202  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

what  in  the  name  of  Vermont  is  wrong  with 
maple-sirup? 

The  monthly  issue  of  "records,"  the  mechani 
cal  players,  and  the  invading  Lyceum  enter 
tainers  have  carried  a  lot  of  real  music  into  the 
most  distant  townships.  The  neighbours  are  be 
coming  "educated."  But  they  are  still  deathly 
afraid  of  the  morbid  genius  who  regards  music 
as  a  secret  cult  instead  of  a  general  dispensation. 


M 


MARK  TWAIN — EMISSARY 

EN  and  women  in  all  parts  of  our 
spread-out  domain,  the  men  especially, 
cherished  a  private  affection  for 
Mark  Twain.  They  called  him  by  his  first 
name,  which  is  the  surest  proof  of  abiding 
fondness.  Some  men  settle  down  to  kinship 
with  the  shirt-sleeve  contingent,  even  when  they 
seem  indifferent  to  the  favour  of  the  plain  multi 
tude. 

Mark  Twain  never  practised  any  of  the  wiles 
of  the  politician  in  order  to  be  cheered  at  rail 
way  stations  and  have  lecture  associations  send 
for  him.  He  did  not  seem  over-anxious  to  meet 
the  reporters,  and  he  had  a  fine  contempt  for 
most  of  the  orthodox  traditions  cherished  by  the 
people  who  loved  him.  Probably  no  other 
American  could  have  lived  abroad  for  so  many 
years  without  being  editorially  branded  as  an 
expatriate. 

When  Mr.  Clemens  chose  to  take  up  his  res 
idence  in  Vienna  nobody  hurled  any  William 
203 


204  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

Waldorf  Astor  talk  at  him.  Everyone  hoped 
he  would  have  a  good  time  and  learn  the  Ger 
man  language.  Then  when  the  word  came 
back  that  he  made  his  loafing  headquarters  in  a 
place  up  an  alley  known  as  a  stube  or  raths 
keller,  or  something  like  that,  all  the  women  of 
the  literary  clubs,  who  kept  his  picture  on  the 
high  pedestal  with  the  candles  burning  in  front 
of  it,  decided  that  stube  meant  "shrine."  You 
may  be  sure  that  if  they  can  find  the  place  they 
will  sink  a  bronze  memorial  tablet  immediately 
above  the  principal  faucet. 

Of  course,  the  early  books,  such  as  "Innocents 
Abroad/  "Roughing  It,"  and  "The  Gilded 
Age/'  gave  him  an  enormous  vogue  in  every  re 
mote  community  visited  by  book-agents.  The 
fact  that  people  enjoyed  reading  these  cheering 
volumes  and  preserved  them  in  the  bookcase 
and  moved  out  some  of  the  classics  by  E.  P. 
Roe  and  Mrs.  Southworth  in  order  to  make 
room  for  "Tom  Sawyer"  and  "Huckleberry 
Finn,"  does  not  fully  account  for  the  evident  and 
accepted  popularity  of  Mark  Twain.  Other 
men  wrote  books  that  went  into  the  bookcase, 
but  what  one  of  them  ever  earned  the  special 
privilege  of  being  hailed  by  his  first  name? 

Is  it  not  true  that  when  a  man  has  done  his 


MARK  TWAIN— EMISSARY       205 

work  for  many  years  more  or  less  under  the 
supervising  eye  of  the  public,  the  public  learns 
a  good  many  facts  about  him  that  are  in  no  way 
associated  with  his  set  and  regular  duties  as  a 
servant  of  the  public?  Out  of  the  thousand- 
and-one  newspaper  mentions  and  private  bits 
of  gossip  and  whispered  words  of  inside  infor 
mation,  even  the  busy  man  in  the  street  comes 
to  put  an  estimate  on  the  real  human  qualities 
of  each  notable,  and  sometimes  these  estimates 
are  surprisingly  accurate,  just  as  they  are  often 
sadly  out  of  focus. 

Joseph  Jefferson  had  a  place  in  the  public 
esteem  quite  apart  from  that  demanded  by  his 
skill  as  an  actor.  Players  and  readers  of  news 
papers  came  to  know  in  time  that  he  was  a  kind 
and  cheery  old  gentleman  of  blameless  life, 
charitable  in  his  estimates  of  professional  as 
sociates,  a  modest  devotee  of  the  fine  arts,  an 
outdoor  sportsman  with  the  enthusiasm  of  a  boy, 
and  the  chosen  associate  of  a  good  many  emi 
nent  citizens.  When  they  spoke  of  "Joe"  Jeffer 
son  in  warmth  and  kindness,  it  was  not  because 
he  played  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  so  beautifully  but 
because  the  light  of  his  private  goodness  had 
filtered  through  the  mystery  surrounding  every 
popular  actor.  William  H.  Crane  is  another 


206  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

veteran  of  the  stage  who  holds  the  regard  of  the 
public.  It  knows  him  as  a  comedian  and  also 
it  knows  him  as  the  kind  of  man  we  would  like 
to  invite  up  to  our  house  to  meet  the  folks. 
The  sororities  throb  with  a  feeling  of  sisterhood 
for  Maude  Adams  because  the  girls  feel  sure 
that  she  is  gracious  and  charming  and  altogether 


nice." 


Mark  Twain  would  have  stood  very  well  with 
the  assorted  grades  making  up  what  is  gener 
ally  known  as  the  "great  public"  even  if  he  had 
done  his  work  in  a  box  and  passed  it  out  through 
a  knot-hole.  Any  one  who  knew  our  homely 
neighbours  as  he  knew  them  and  could  tell 
about  them  in  loving  candour,  so  that  we 
laughed  at  them  and  warmed  up  to  them  at  the 
same  time,  simply  had  to  be  all  right.  Being 
prejudiced  in  his  favour,  we  knew  that  if  he 
wanted  to  wear  his  hair  in  a  mop  and  adopt 
white  clothing  and  talk  with  a  drawl,  no  one 
would  dare  to  suggest  that  he  was  affecting  the 
picturesque.  He  was  big  enough  to  be  different. 
Any  special  privilege  was  his  without  the  ask 
ing.  Having  earned  one  hundred  per  cent,  of 
our  homage  he  didn't  have  to  strain  for  new 
effects. 

His  devotion  to  the  members  of  his  family 


MARK  TWAIN— EMISSARY       207 

and  the  heroic  performance  in  connection  with 
the  debts  of  the  publishing  house  undoubtedly 
helped  to  strengthen  the  general  regard  for  him. 
Also,  the  older  generation,  having  heard  him 
lecture,  could  say  that  they  had  "met"  him. 
Everyone  who  sat  within  the  soothing  presence 
of  the  drawl,  waiting  to  be  chirked  up  on  every 
second  sentence  with  a  half-concealed  stroke  of 
drollery,  was  for  all  time  a  witness  to  the  in 
imitable  charm  of  the  man  and  the  story-teller. 
Furthermore,  is  it  not  possible  that  much  of 
the  tremendous  liking  for  Mark  Twain  grew  out 
of  his  success  in  establishing  our  credit  abroad? 
Any  American  who  can  invade  Europe  and  com 
mand  respectful  attention  is  entitled  to  trium 
phal  arches  when  he  arrives  home.  Our  dread 
and  fear  of  foreign  criticism  are  still  most  acute. 
Mrs.  Trollope  and  Captain  Marryat  lacerated 
our  feelings  long  ago.  Dickens  came  over  to 
have  our  choicest  flowers  strewn  in  his  pathway 
and  then  went  home  to  scourge  us  until  we 
shrieked  with  pain.  Kipling  simply  put  us  on 
the  griddle.  Even  to  this  day,  when  a  frown 
ing  gentleman  surrounded  by  shawls  and  Glad 
stone  bags  is  discovered  on  the  Cunard  pier,  we 
proceed  to  search  him  for  vitriol.  George 
Bernard  Shaw  peppers  away  at  long  range  and 


208  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

the  London  Spectator  grows  peevish  every  time 
it  looks  out  of  the  window  and  sees  a  drove  of 
Cook  tourists  madly  spending  their  money. 

It  is  a  terrible  shock  to  the  simple  inlander 
who  has  fed  upon  Congressional  oratory  and 
provincial  editorials,  when  he  discovers  that  in 
certain  European  capitals  the  name  "American" 
is  almost  a  term  of  reproach.  The  first-time- 
over  citizen  from  Spudville  or  Alfalfa  Centre 
indicates  his  protest  by  wearing  a  flag  on  his 
coat  and  inviting  those  who  sit  in  darkness  to 
come  over  and  see  what  kind  of  trains  are  run 
on  the  Burlington.  The  lady  whose  voice 
carries  from  a  point  directly  between  the  eyes, 
seeks  to  correct  all  erroneous  impressions  by  go 
ing  to  the  table  d'hote  with  fewer  clothes  and 
more  jewels  than  any  one  had  reason  to  expect. 
These  two  are  not  so  much  in  evidence  as  they 
were  twenty  years  ago  but  they  are  still  glee 
fully  held  up  by  our  critics  as  being  "typical." 

Probably  they  are  outnumbered  nowadays  by 
the  apologetic  kind — those  who  approach  the 
English  accent  with  trembling  determination 
and  who,  after  ordering  in  French,  put  a  finger 
on  the  printed  line  so  that  the  waiter  may  be  in 
on  the  secret. 

There  are  Americans  who  live  abroad  and 


MARK  TWAIN— EMISSARY        209 

speak  of  their  native  land  in  shameful  whispers. 
Another  kind  is  an  explainer.  He  becomes  fret 
ful  and  involved  in  the  attempt  to  make  it  clear 
to  some  Englishman  with  a  cold  and  fish-like 
eye  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  lynchings  are 
scattered  over  a  large  territory  and  Tammany 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  United 
States  Senate  and  the  millionaire  does  not  crawl 
into  the  presence  of  his  wife  and  daughters  and 
the  head  of  the  House  of  Morgan  never  can  be 
King  and  citizens  of  St.  Louis  are  not  in  danger 
of  being  hooked  by  moose.  After  he  gets 
through  the  Englishman  says  "Really?"  and  the 
painful  incident  is  closed. 

Once  in  a  while  an  American,  finding  himself 
beset  by  unfamiliar  conditions,  follows  the 
simple  policy  of  not  trying  to  assimilate  new 
rules  or  oppose  them,  but  merely  going  ahead 
in  his  own  way,  conducting  himself  as  a  human 
being  possessed  of  the  standard  human  attri 
butes.  This  unusual  performance  may  be 
counted  upon  to  excite  wonder  and  admiration. 
Benjamin  Franklin  tried  it  out  long  ago  and  be 
came  the  sensation  of  Europe.  General  Grant 
and  Colonel  Roosevelt  got  along  comfortably  in 
all  sorts  of  foreign  complications  merely  by  re 
fusing  to  put  on  disguises.  But  Mark  Twain 


210  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

was  probably  the  best  of  our  emissaries.  He 
never  waved  the  starry  banner  and  at  the  same 
time  he  never  went  around  begging  forgiveness. 
He  knew  the  faults  of  his  home  people  and  he 
understood  intimately  and  with  a  family  knowl 
edge  all  of  their  good  qualities  and  groping  in 
tentions  and  half-formed  plans  for  big  things  in 
the  future,  but  apparently  he  did  not  think  it 
necessary  to  justify  all  of  his  private  beliefs  to 
men  who  lived  five  thousand  miles  away  from 
Hannibal,  Missouri.  He  had  been  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  and  had  made  a  calm  and  unbiased 
estimate  of  the  relative  values  of  men  and  in 
stitutions.  Probably  he  came  to  know  that  all 
had  been  cut  from  one  piece  and  then  trimmed 
variously.  He  carried  with  him  the  same 
placid  habits  of  life  that  sufficed  him  in  Con 
necticut  and  because  he  was  what  he  pretended 
to  be,  the  hypercritical  foreigners  doted  upon 
him  and  the  Americans  at  home,  glad  to  flat 
ter  themselves,  said,  "Why,  certainly;  he's  one 
of  us!" 


WHIRLIGIGS 

THE  boy  you  knew  back  in  grammar 
school,  the  one  locally  groomed  for  the 
U.  S.  Senate — what  became  of  him? 
Driving  a  taxi  right  back  there  in  the  old  home 
town. 

And  silent  Edgar,  who  was  not  good  enough 
for  the  ball  team?  Merely  president  of  the 
J.  P.  and  H. 

We  live  in  a  land  of  opportunity — and  blow 
ups. 

Did  any  other  part  of  the  globe,  at  any  time, 
ever  witness  such  meteoric  flashes  across  the 
open  firmament  or  such  cataclysmal  collapses 
into  the  soft  mud? 

In  older  regions,  where  usages  have  petrified, 
each  individual  may  find  himself  wedged  and 
locked  into  a  numbered  social  stratum  and  des 
tined  to  remain  there. 

Over  here,  the  facilities  for  going  up  in  bal 
loons  and  falling  down  elevator  shafts  are  glori 
ous  and  unexcelled. 

211 


212  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

The  well-known  team  of  Presto  and  Change  is 
doing  legerdemain  in  every  centre  of  population. 
Now  you  see  them  and  now  you  don't  see  them ! 

If  you  want  to  check  up  on  the  sensational 
upsets  and  sky-rocket  ascensions,  do  not  figure 
a  man  merely  from  one  birthday  to  another.  In 
voice  him  at  twenty  and,  after  that,  leave  him 
alone  until  he  is  fifty.  Then  add  him  up.  Com 
pare  the  ratings. 

Youth  is  heedless  and  cannot  be  warned,  be 
cause  it  commands  no  perspective  of  the  years. 
It  never  has  seen  towering  notables  peter  away 
to  wilted  remnants,  while  plodding  yokels  grew 
into  giants  and  sat  on  their  thrones  as  if  they 
had  been  born  under  purple  hangings. 

It  isn't  the  start  that  counts,  here  in  the  land 
of  whirligigs.  It's  the  finish. 

Trunk  lines  heading  for  the  most  important 
destinations  go  through  a  lot  of  scrubby  way- 
stations. 

The  traveller  picked  up  by  an  avalanche  and 
carried  to  nameless  depths  of  oblivion  passes  a 
lot  of  superior  scenery  on  the  way  down. 

The  point  being  that  our  immediate  back 
ground  this  afternoon  doesn't  matter  so  much, 
but  it  is  most  important  to  know  which  way  our 
little  solitaire  special  is  headed. 


WHIRLIGIGS  213 

A  most  revealing  occupation  is  to  get  out  the 
family  album  and  review  the  biographies  of 
those  dudes  and  debutantes  who  were  in  bud 
about  the  time  of  the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago. 

Discover,  if  you  can,  why  Fate  seems  to  work 
with  a  dice-box  instead  of  a  T-square. 

Try  to  explain  why  the  most  theatrical  matri 
monial  alliances  finish  on  the  rocks,  wrecked  to 
a  fare-ye-well. 

Regard  the  painful  smash-ups  which  waited 
for  young  people  who  inherited  money  and  were 
supposed  to  be  "lucky." 

Learn  by  deduction  that  money  doesn't  care 
to  whom  it  belongs. 

Good  repute  can  be  switched  on  and  off,  like 
an  electric  current. 

Why  call  it  a  melting-pot?     It's  a  churn. 


ADVICE 

THE  cream  of  all  jobs  is  that  of  perching 
on  the  fence  and  telling  the  other  fellow 
how  to  saw  the  wood. 

If  you  have  a  bad  cold,  a  punctured  tire,  a 
temperamental  wife,  or  a  crooked  partner,  then 
Mr.  John  J.  Wiseman  will  pause  beside  you  and 
your  predicament  long  enough  to  complicate  the 
situation  by  mixing  in  some  wordy  counsel. 
Advice  is  the  first  gift  laid  in  the  dimpled  hands 
of  childhood  and  the  last  kick  directed  at  the 
withered  buttocks  of  old  age. 

It  is  the  only  item  of  ostensible  value  which 
one  receives  every  day  without  asking  for  it. 
Advice  will  continue  to  be  served  in  large  por 
tions  because  each  gift  carries  with  it  a  pre 
sumption  of  the  relative  superiority  of  the 
giver.  He  who  prescribes  policies,  exalts  him 
self. 

You  need  not  have  a  record  of  past  perform 
ances  in  order  to  qualify  as  a  professional  ad 
viser. 


ADVICE  215 

The  down-and-outer,  watching  the  tape, 
wishes  that  he  could  get  some  word  to  the  Mor 
gan  crowd. 

Who  writes  to  the  Congressman  and  points 
out  the  concrete  pathway  back  to  general  pros 
perity?  The  gentleman  whose  wife  takes  in 
washing. 

The  most  plausible  rules  for  the  Kings  of  Big 
Business  are  cooked  up  by  a  High-Brow  who 
never  looked  a  pay-roll  in  the  face.  The  pouchy 
millionaire  is  asked  to  give  inside  information 
to  a  covey  of  squabs.  Will  he  give  the  gaping 
young  things  his  real  recipe  for  being  success 
ful?  The  chances  are  nine  to  one  that  he 
doesn't  know  it. 

The  prominent  citizen  tells  them  to  be  sober, 
frugal,  industrious,  devoted  to  the  interests  of 
the  boss,  always  giving  more  service  than  is  de 
manded,  never  finding  fault,  patient  in  the 
knowledge  that  reward  will  come  eventually. 

All  the  inside  furnished  rooms  and  pasteboard 
bungalows  are  occupied  by  elderly  plodders  who 
have  been  sober,  frugal,  industrious,  obedient, 
willing,  uncomplaining,  and  patient.  They  took 
the  whole  prescription  and  did  not  wake  up  as 
millionaires.  Conventional  advice  is  good  soft 
gruel  for  subordinates,  but  the  lad  who  wants 


216  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

red  meat  goes  out  gunning  all  by  himself  and 
brings  in  the  big  game.  He  has  the  gift  of  find 
ing  the  dollar  mark  on  the  trail  and  he  did  not 
get  it  by  reading  a  book  or  listening  to  lectures. 
Since  the  giving  of  advice  has  become  epi 
demic,  here  is  a  rule:  Always  advise  your  friend 
to  do  the  thing  which  you  know  he  is  not  going 
to  do.  Then,  if  he  falls  down  in  following  his 
own  judgment,  you  will  get  credit  for  having 
warned  him.  If  he  succeeds,  he  will  be  tickled  at 
the  opportunity  to  tell  you  that  you  were  dead 
wrong. 


CHRISTMAS  IN  LONDON 

WHEN  you  set  out  to  qualify  as  a 
circumnavigator,  your  whole  time 
table  must  be  adjusted  to  seasonal 
conditions  in  India.  Only  in  winter  may  the 
tourist  in  Agra,  Jaipur,  and  Benares  find  pro 
tection  under  a  pith  helmet.  Therefore,  when 
two  of  us  planned  to  go  around  the  orange,  fol 
lowing  the  most  beaten  track  to  the  east,  we 
began  guessing  at  dates  and  destinations  and 
learned  that  we  would  have  to  make  an  early 
start  to  avoid  being  trapped  by  the-  deadly  heat 
so  picturesquely  advertised  by  Mr.  Kipling. 

All  this  copious  prelude  so  that  you  may  un 
derstand  why  we  found  ourselves  in  London  at 
Christmas  time.  One  needs  an  alibi  in  a  case  of 
that  kind.  Do  you  remember  the  melodrama, 
"Alone  in  London"?  We  appeared  in  it. 

London  on  Christmas  Eve  was  abuzz  with 
gaiety  (modified  British  gaiety)  and  crowds.  We 
awoke  on  Christmas  morning  to  find  that  during 
the  night  the  human  race  had  evaporated. 
217 


218  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

We  got  this  first  at  the  egg  ceremony  in  the 
lonesome  grill.  It  was  repeated  by  the  field 
marshal  who  stood  at  the  main  entrance.  Also, 
this  particular  Christmas  was  spoken  of  very 
highly  by  the  musical  comedy  hero  who  assigned 
the  rooms. 

Taking  one  25th  of  December  with  another 
and  striking  an  average,  we  would  have  said 
that  this  London  Christmas  was  not  even  a  dis 
mal  suggestion  of  the  real  thing. 

A  soft  gloom  covered  the  earth.  The  sky  was 
a  sombre  canopy,  compromising  between  a  gray 
and  a  dun.  If  you  should  mix  battleship 
colour  with  the  shade  used  in  painting  refriger 
ator  cars,  you  might  get  an  approximation  of 
the  effect.  The  light  came  from  nowhere.  Not 
freezing  weather,  but  in  the  sluggish  air  a  chill 
which  cut  right  through  top-coats. 

But  a  jolly  Christmas,  nevertheless,  because 
the  fog  had  lifted  and  no  rain  was  falling. 

Probably  we  had  been  spoiled  in  the  matter 
of  Christmases.  Our  romantic  specifications 
called  for  white  draperies  on  the  hillside,  feath 
ered  plumes  surmounting  each  thicket,  the 
smoke  from  every  chimney  going  straight  up, 
and  a  steel-cold  sun  hanging  in  burnished  splen 
dour  overhead. 


CHRISTMAS  IN  LONDON         219 

We  had  made  no  plans  for  the  day,  somehow 
feeling  that  every  Christmas  works  out  its  own 
programme.  Certainly  we  had  looked  forward 
to  being  in  London  on  the  day  which  English- 
speaking  people  have  garlanded  with  so  much 
of  homely  sentiment. 

Probably  we  had  a  lot  of  Dickens  still  lurk 
ing  in  our  systems.  We- rather  hoped  to  find,  in 
London  at  Yuletide,  the  carols  ringing  out  on 
the  frosty  air,  while  the  backlog  roared,  the 
punch-bowl  was  wreathed  with  spicy  vapours, 
the  boar's  head  smiled  from  its  pillow  of  holly 
and,  on  every  hand,  crabbed  old  gentlemen 
melted  perceptibly  before  the  good  cheer  of  the 
blessed  day  and  began  giving  money  to  crippled 
children. 

It  may  be  that  the  English  Christmas  is  just 
what  has  been  represented  to  us  in  song  and 
story,  but  the  homeless  transient  sees  no  part  of 
it. 

As  we  walked  forth  that  Christmas  we  found 
that  the  metropolis  of  the  world  had  become 
merely  an  emptiness  of  walls  and  shutters.  If 
machine-guns  had  been  planted  at  Trafalgar 
Square  to  sweep  each  radiating  thoroughfare, 
there  would  have  been  no  fatalities. 

Probably  behind  the  high  walls  (spiked  with 


220  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

broken  glass)  and  the  drawn  shades,  the  nuts 
were  being  cracked  and  cobwebby  bottles  of  old 
port  were  being  tenderly  operated  upon,  and 
Uncle  Charleys  with  shining  faces  were  propos 
ing  toasts. 

But  even  a  prohibition  agent,  intent  upon 
compelling  merrymakers  to  find  their  wassail  in 
grape  juice,  would  have  been  deceived  by  the 
outward  solemnity  of  Christmas  in  London. 

It  seems  to  be  the  one  day  in  the  calendar  on 
which  every  Englishman  retires  into  his  own 
home  and  pulls  up  the  drawbridge.  Those  who 
have  country  places  go  to  the  country  and  those 
who  know  people  having  country  places  put  in 
acceptances  weeks  ahead.  At  every  hearth-stone 
the  relatives  who  have  been  shunned  during  the 
previous  364  days  are  stuffed  with  warm  food. 

So  we  were  told. 

By  noon  we  decided  to  escape  from  our  hotel. 
It  was  so  near  the  Thames  that  we  dared  not 
trust  ourselves. 

We  learned  of  an  old  tavern,  miles  up  the 
river,  where  a  special  dinner  was  served  on 
Christmas  Day.  Sure  enough,  we  found  a  bed 
of  coals  in  a  grate,  a  Pickwick  sort  of  person 
sitting  in  front  of  it,  and  a  head  waiter  with 
apologetic  side-whiskers. 


CHRISTMAS  IN  LONDON         221 

We  made  out,  as  you  might  say,  but  if  you, 
reader,  are  planning  to  be  in  Merrie  England 
on  Christmas  Day,  look  up  the  forkings  of  the 
ancestral  tree  and  try  to  discover  a  rela 
tive. 


\    LUXURIES 

i 

RIGMT  here,  and  nowhere  else,  except 
in  two  or  three  other  new  countries,  poor 
people  get  in  on  the  luxuries. 

Do  you  know  of  any  one  past  the  age  of  eight 
who  never  rode  in  a  motor  car? 

Countless  millions  in  Europe  regard  the  auto 
mobile  as  a  rich  man's  luxury.  It  is  a  symbol 
of  splendour  which  chases  them  off  the  road 
ways.  They  never  dream  of  becoming  ac 
quainted  with  anything  so  huge  and  important. 

The  farmer  in  France  or  Italy  or  Germany 
has  no  telephone  in  his  house.  A  good  assort 
ment  of  live  stock — but  no  'phone. 

He  has  cows — but  he  does  without  butter. 

He  grows  grain — to  make  white  bread  for  the 
aristocrats  of  the  city. 

Meat  on  the  table  means  a  family  feast. 

The  movie  to  him  is  a  holiday  treat  and  ice 
cream  is  a  semi-annual  jamboree. 

The  daughter  has  never  rocked  around  on 
high  heels  or  hit  herself  in  the  nose  with  a 
powder  rag. 

222 


LUXURIES  223 

The  son  has  never  worn  a  snappy  suit  with 
the  belt  surrounding  the  lungs  instead  of  the 
digestive  organs. 

Most  of  the  human  beings  outside  of  this 
hemisphere  line  up  as  paupers.  Invoice  their 
holdings  and  you  will  find  that  the  assets,  per 
person,  run  up  to  about  §8.75. 

The  ordinary  man  we  pass  in  the  street 
carries  probably  875  worth  of  merchandise. 
The  guess  is  low  rather  than  high,  because  we 
have  to  take  into  account  a  suit  of  clothes,  a 
hat,  a  pair  of  shoes,  various  undergarments, 
buttons  made  of  a  precious  metal,  and  possibly 
some  expensive  fillings  in  the  teeth. 

If  he  had  been  born  in  Egypt  or  Ceylon  or 
Burma  or  China  or  Japan  or  Africa  he  would  be 
wearing  a  costume  worth  SI. 80  and  be  thank 
ful  that  he  had  advanced  from  the  breech-clout. 

About  sixty-five  per  cent,  of  all  the  people  in 
the  world  think  they  are  getting  along  great 
when  they  are  not  starving  to  death. 

In  these  days  of  hard-upness,  when  so  many 
of  us  are  curled  up  in  mental  anguish  because 
we  cannot  slather  money  as  we  did  in  1919,  it 
may  help  if  we  reflect  that,  at  least,  each  of  us 
has  a  mattress  at  night,  meals  as  usual,  books  to 
read,  and  some  sort  of  entertainment  in  the  next 
block. 


224  SINGLE  BLESSEDNESS 

That's  more  than  most  of  our  far-away 
neighbours  have. 

We  suffer  more  than  they  do  because  we  have 
come  to  regard  luxuries  as  necessities. 

Many  a  man  thinks  the  government  at  Wash 
ington  is  a  failure  if  he  has  to  stop  smoking  35 
cent  cigars  and  compromise  on  cheap  stogies 
costing  only  20  cents  each. 

Take  silk  stockings  away  from  a  woman  who 
has  got  used  to  the  feel  of  them  and  she  is  liable 
to  go  into  her  room  and  die  of  a  broken  heart. 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  things  we  have 
succeeded  in  getting  are  necessities. 

The  Russian  housewife  gets  up  in  the  morn 
ing  and  prays  for  a  loaf  of  black  bread. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Johnny-Jump-Up  of  the  U.  S.  A. 
arise  at  8  A.  M.  and  gloomily  face  the  prospect  of 
getting  along  with  five  servants  instead  of  seven. 

The  lean  years  may  have  their  uses. 

While  we  are  down  in  the  valley  we  may  have 
time  to  figure  it  out  that  the  five-pound  box  of 
candy  at  $2  the  pound  may  be  taken  out  of  the 
daily  existence  without  leaving  a  scar. 


THE  END 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


I3AIOV^r          < 

5ENYONILL 

n 

CT  20  2QBO 

w 

I?  F  f  ft  i    o            w      U 

C  BERKELEY 

JIM  2  1  ]9Bo 

29Aug'64WO| 

REC'D  I  n 

AUB  15  64  "4PM 

fAUG26  1978 

fflft  CM,      JUl  2  6  78 

MAR    6198317 

REG.  cm.  Mftf  9  'gj 

LD  21A-50m-4,'59 
(A1724slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


